Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2012

Ka’iulani, the pampered niece of Hawaii’s last king, was spirited from the islands and sent to England when the scheming American businessmen (represented by Will Patton and a snarling Barry Pepper) decided to take over. In Britain she got a thorough education and apparently had time for an entirely fabricated romance. A lady of intelligence and will, she later returned and was instrumental in securing voting rights for her people in the new U.S. territory before dying young. Q’orianka Kilcher, a Hawaiian of Peruvian and Swiss descent, does well in the title role, but is clearly risking native-princess typecasting. If you remember, in 2005 at age 14, the actress played the nobly savage Pocahontas in Terrence Malick’s The New World, a similar but far superior yarn. Some day someone will make a great film about the end of the Hawaiian monarchy and America’s tawdry forced annexation, but this perfunctory, deadly earnest, historically shaky costume weepy ain’t it. It’s nicely filmed, which is hard not to do in Hawaii (with some scenes inside usually closed Iolani Palace). But to call this stretched, reverent biopic “creaky” would be a compliment.