MONTE CARLO (Thomas Bezucha). 109 minutes. Opens Friday (July 1). See listing. Rating: N
Monte Carlo gives a bad name to its titular locale. With Disney starlet Selena Gomez as our tour guide, the luxurious Côte d’Azur town has never seemed so dull.
Gomez, best known as the young woman attached to Justin Bieber’s tonsils, turns in a monotonous performance as Grace, a Texan teen celebrating her high school graduation in France with best friend Emma (Katie Cassidy, a delight) and standoffish step-sister Meg (Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester) in tow.
A case of mistaken identity leads Grace to impersonate a Paris Hilton-like socialite (Gomez again), landing the trio a dream vacation in Monte Carlo’s famous Hotel de Paris.
Thanks to multiple writers, the movie has very little to do with its credited source material, Jules Bass’s novel Headhunters, which actually had the makings of the kind of screwball comedy that would have once starred Carey Grant and the Princess of Monaco herself Grace Kelly (both appear here when Emma is seen watching Hitchcock’s own French Riviera caper To Catch a Thief).
Call it a case of missed opportunity, since what we get instead is a generic tween-comedy that has zero laughs, little charm and actors (with the exception of Cassidy) who don’t do much more than make cute faces.
