Movie Reviews: "The Young Victoria"

[JamesG]

Movie Reviews: The Young Victoria

Filmmakers paid homage to the Victorian era in two movies over the weekend -- the blockbuster movie Sherlock Holmes and the smaller The Young Victoria, about the queen who gave the era (1837-1901) her name, which widened its release and earned $603,866 at 163 theaters to bring its total after two weeks to $886,514.


"Emily Blunt makes Victoria as irresistible a young woman as Dame Judi Dench made her an older one in Mrs. Brown," wrote Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ebert conceded that he's "a pushover for British historical dramas," and particularly those about British royalty.

Alas, he wrote, although The Young Victoria is "a charmer ... it lacks the passion" of its predecessors, "perhaps because it's so, well, Victorian."


Other critics reached similar conclusions.


Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News commented that the movie lacks "real spirit" and "remains impeccably proper at all times."

Manohla Dargis concluded in the New York Times that also that "the movie's pleasures are as light as its story."

Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail put it this way: "Young Victoria is just a lot of costumes in fond search of some drama. And finding precious little."

And Mick Lasalle commented in the San Francisco Chronicle: "We Americans get intimidated by this sort of thing. So every so often we need to remind ourselves that the mere spectacle of people walking around in 19th century costume and talking with English accents does not automatically constitute an intelligent movie.


On the other hand, Peter Howell in the Toronto Star concluded that the movie "honors the past while informing the present."

Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times called it "a rich pastiche of first love, teen empowerment, fabulous fashion and fate."

And Christopher Kelly in the Dallas Morning News wrote that despite its faults, "it remains brisk and intelligent, not to mention a welcome alternative to the noisy holiday season spectacles currently jamming up the multiplex."

-IMDB News