The problem with setting a movie in Versailles is that the architecture and the landscape overwhelm any humans walking on the ground.
With "The King's Daughter," the grounds are also more interesting than a supernatural component that would be a highlight in a better film.
The grand French palaces are a requirement because the story, based on Vonda N. McIntyre's 1997 novel "The Moon and the Sun," involves France's 17th-century monarch Louis XIV. Even with a star like Pierce Brosnan playing the Sun King, it's easy to wish the palaces were the focus of the movie.
Instead, Louis believes that his longevity is the key to France's continued success. He has just led the country through a war that enhances his own prestige but has also depleted the Crown's treasury. With succession looking uncertain, the obvious solution to the nation's (or is it the King's?) anxiety is for the sovereign to live forever.
This sounds like a tall order, even for the Sun King, but his physician (Pablo Schreiber) suggests that the no-succession succession plan might work if he and the King can capture a mermaid (Bingbing Fan) and extract her life force during a total eclipse.
Thanks to courageous sea captain (Benjamin Walker), who also happens to be in serious legal trouble, obtaining a siren has been the easy part. Keeping a mermaid healthy until the sacrifice is another matter.
As one might expect for a narcissistic monarch, Louis has recruited a young woman to play music for him every morning. But Marie-Josephe (Kaya Scodelario) is more than just a talented tunesmith and performer. Thanks to her convent education, she's unaware that she is Louis' illegitimate daughter. Her tunes seem to make the mermaid feel better, but Louis seems to have nefarious plans for both his offspring and the mermaid.
The King's reign could become tyrannical if it were not for the devoted Pere La Chaise (William Hurt). The priest finds the idea of ritual sacrifice understandably distasteful and becomes even more appalled as the eclipse nears. The story might have been more interesting if the good father had a less predictable character arc. Both he and the King are fairly static characters, so the conflict that should drive the story never gets all that involving.
Scodelario comes off as suitably spirited and defiant. Being stuck in a convent seems as restrictive as putting a mermaid in a swimming pool. It probably doesn't help that the computer-generated mermaid is not very expressive. For the movie to work, we have to grow to love her the way Marie-Josephe does. With her flat expressions and unconvincing movement, that makes the King's plan seem weirdly practical in comparison.
Motion capture has come a long way. Josh Brolin's turn as Thanos, and Andy Serkis' performance in the recent "Planet of the Apes" trilogy show that nonhuman characters can have cinematic souls. It's hard to get worked up about a mermaid movie when the siren is nothing special.
"The King's Daughter" has been sitting on the shelf since 2014, and the 90-minute running time indicates that the film's backers are just trying to cut their losses at this point. The plot jerks from point to point with sloppy resolutions. It's easy to wonder if some explanatory footage was left on the cutting room floor so the movie could play several times a day regardless of whether the story flowed or made sense.
James Schamus, a regular Ang Lee collaborator, has a writing credit, but it's hard to tell if the stilted dialogue emerged from his pen. Perhaps if director Sean McNamara, who's best known for "Soul Surfer," had a more subtle and assured hand, the tale would have seemed more magical than mechanical.
At least Conrad W. Hall ("Se7en") shoots Versailles with the majesty and opulence it deserves. Who needs mermaids when something real is so breathtaking to behold?