Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Monte Carlo Blu-ray Movie Review

Selena Gomez, Royally Flushed

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater November 7, 2011

I doubt many of you are Monte Carlo’s target audience—Blu-ray.com’s visitor demographic skews heavily toward the 18-35 male set—but if you clicked on the link and are actually reading this review, I’m going to assume that, whoever you are, you’re looking for some innocuous, girl- friendly, tweenaged entertainment. (I judge not.) If that’s the case, you’re in luck. Monte Carlo is a frosting-coated confection of a film, primed to be devoured by 12-year-old girls. But let’s be completely clear—only 12-year-old girls will eat this stuff up. If you’re older, or—heaven help you—some kind of alpha-male, there’s a good chance your movie metabolism will be way too slow to digest Monte Carlo’s gummy, sugar-covered white bread sweetness. It’s well-made and will probably please its intended viewers, but Monte Carlo is unmistakably unoriginal. It has all the hallmarks of a female-centric fairytale—mistaken identity, a persnickety stepsister, princess dresses and fancy balls to wear them to—and while this is all well and good to a certain extent, you can’t quite shake the feeling that the movie was created entirely by committee, as if a dozen producers sat down in a boardroom to hash out the details of the plot by cribbing liberally from much better rags to riches stories.

Our pauper-turned-princess in this particular tale is Grace Bennett—played by Disney Channel wunderkind and Justin Beiber girlfriend extraordinaire Selena Gomez—a down-home Texas teenager and part-time greasy spoon diner waitress who’s been collecting her meager tips in a “Paris Fund” mason jar, with high hopes of spending the summer after graduation trotting around the City of Lights. Mousy and smart, she’s far from popular, and she has grand ideas about how this trip abroad might magically change her before she heads off to NYU in the fall. Also coming along on this unsupervised adventure of a lifetime is Grace’s best friend and co-worker, Emma (Katie Cassidy), a dumb-blond high school dropout who’s never been outside the Lone Star State. Her blue-collar boyfriend Owen (Glee’s Cory Monteith) wants to keep it that way—he proposes to her inside his massive pick-up truck in an attempt to keep her from leaving—but she’s got dreams of a bigger, better, richer life. (As an example of her naïve small-town expectations, her highest hope is to live in a house with “fancy” dimmer switch lights.) Emma wants to live it up in the big city, and Grace hopes to have some kind of life-altering experience, but a wet blanket is thrown on their expectations when Grace’s mom and step-dad announce that her stick-in-the-mud older stepsister Meg (Leighton Meester) will also be joining them on the trip. Meg’s still hung up over her mom’s death, and she’s a perpetual sourpuss, an uptight spoilsport who seems allergic to a good time.

Just from what I’ve written above, you can probably guess three things about the outcome of Monte Carlo: 1.) Grace will be changed, but not in the ways she expected. 2.) Emma will eventually get her dimmer switches, and 3.) Meg will learn to loosen up and enjoy life. These are the inevitabilities for the three characters. The journey that takes them—and us—there is no less predictable, but it is harmless, old- fashioned fun. Monte Carlo feels like some long-lost live-action Disney film from the early 1960s—innocent, hijinks-filled, and based around a plot gimmick that’s only remotely plausible in the movies. In this case, it’s the coincidence that Grace bears an uncanny resemblance to the bitchy British heiress Cordelia Winthrop Scott, a filthy rich jet-setter whose indiscretions and bad behavior are front-page tabloid material. After getting abandoned by their tour group, the three girls take refuge from a rainstorm inside a swanky hotel, where Grace is quickly mistaken for Cordelia and given the royal treatment. Before they know it, the working-class Texan trio is being whisked away to Monte Carlo for a charity ball and transported into the realm of the European aristocratic elite. (Why no one ever checks their passports while crossing the border is a plot hole we’re meant to overlook.) By this point, they have no choice but to keep up the inadvertent ruse.

Sexy boys come courting, there’s a thread about a missing diamond necklace and—of course—all hell breaks loose when the real Cordelia shows up in Monte Carlo, but this seems less like a story and more like a checklist of plot points to be ticked off one by one by rote. The whole scenario is engineered to put the girls first in the plush lap of luxury, and then in awkward, totally-out-of-their-league social situations. They sleep in a gilded king-sized bed and go through Cordelia’s countless luggage trunks, trying on pretty clothes and donning expensive jewelry. Grace fumbles her way through a polo match and has to fool Cordelia’s suspicious aunt, Alicia (Catherine Tate). Naturally, each of the girls finds love—Grace with a budding French billionaire (Pierre Boulanger), Meg with a dashing backpacker (Luke Bracey), and Emma with her Texas steady, who realizes the error of his ways and comes to Monte Carlo to find her—but feminists will most definitely be irked by how the girls’ happiness is so dependent on finding the right guy. This is most definitely a happy-ever-after, clutch-your-chest-and-sigh kind of movie.

It’s by no means good, but it’s probably better than it should be, and definitely better than it could’ve been. Yes, Selena Gomez is mildly annoying when playing the real Cordelia—she doesn’t have the maturity yet to be believably ice cold and posh—but she’s actually decent as Grace, sweet and frustrated and caught up in a whirlwind of wealth and attention. Katie Cassidy is appropriately bubbly/blond/braindead, and Leighton Meester is a champion pouter. Their characters are all best friends by the end, but you knew that already. In fact, if all you knew about Monte Carlo was that it starred Selena Gomez, you would probably already know everything you’d need to know to make a decision in advance about whether or not you’d like the film.

Monte Carlo Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Monte Carlo comes up aces on Blu-ray, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that—like most new releases from 20th Century Fox—is definitely easy on the eyes. The movie was shot on a rather grainy 35mm film stock, but this rarely impedes the clarity of the picture. Instead, the grain—which hasn't been touched at all by digital noise reduction—gives the image a warm, rich, natural-looking film texture. (There's no sign of edge enhancement either.) Overall sharpness isn't necessarily up there with the best that Blu-ray has to offer, but there's plenty of high definition detail in the areas where you expect to see it—the actors' faces and hair, the fancy ball gowns and costume jewelry. Color is bright and vibrant throughout, and skin tones—while a bit on the tanned side—are balanced and consistent. Black levels are strong too, and contrast is nice and punchy. Compression noise and other artifacts are kept to a minimum, and the print itself is in perfect condition.

Monte Carlo Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Monte Carlo receives Fox's standard-issue DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound presentation, and you can probably guess by the nature of the movie that this mix isn't going to blow out your windows or rattle your walls. That said, the track is capable enough of handling the film's limited sonic scope. Most of the mix stays rooted in the front channels, but it has adequate dynamic heft and consistent clarity. The rear speakers do pipe up now and then for some quiet ambience and effects—especially once the trans-European hijinks really get started—and the score, though typical and forgettable, sounds full and clear. Most importantly, dialogue is always clean and easy to understand, and there are no hisses, pops, crackles, or dropouts to report. The disc comes with optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles.

Monte Carlo Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 6:46): Seven short deleted scenes.
• Monte Carlo Match-Up (1080p): Answer 10 multiple-choice questions to find out which character from the film you most resemble. F.Y.I., I'm Grace.
• Ding-Dang Delicious: The Boys of Monte Carlo (1080p, 5:45): A short behind the scenes featurette about the dreamy guys in the film.
• Monte Carlo Couture (1080p, 6:00): A similar piece about the costuming.
• Jet Setter's Dreams (1080p, 6:09): A quite bit about the European locations.
• Backstage Pass (1080p, 3:48): This one covers the hairstyles and make-up. All of the featurettes could've been combined into one larger making-of documentary.
• Gossip with the Girls (1080p, 5:52): The three girls get together to talk about their characters and the shoot.
• Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:26)
• BD-Live Exclusive: "Who Says" Music Video by Selena Gomez (720p)

Monte Carlo Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Monte Carlo isn't original in the slightest, and it will probably only appeal to a narrow subset of preteen girls (and maybe their moms), but it's sweet and inoffensive and—let's admit it—probably a good deal better than it could've been. Like most contemporary Fox titles, the film looks and sounds great on Blu-ray, and it also comes with a decent selection of special features. I can't say I recommend this one, but Selena Gomez fans will definitely want to give it a go.