Amazon.com video review:
A fantastic premise is utterly blown in this film by director
Michael Hoffman and screenwriter Rupert Walters (the two collaborated
previously on the winning Some Girls).
Robert Downey Jr. plays Robert Merivel, King Charles II's (Sam Neill)
spirited young physician in 17th-century England. The king offers to
set Merivel up for life in exchange for one small favor: marry the
royal mistress (Polly Walker) to provide his highness some cover for
his philandering. But Merivel blows it by falling in love with the
woman, and he is cast out of his pampered paradise to reinvent himself
as a serious man helping victims of the plague beyond the palace's
walls. It's a superb notion, and the film looks just terrific,
particularly Charles's court, where scientific and artistic innovation
flourishes. But somehow the story completely falls apart once Merivel
goes on his quest for salvation. The scenes aren't there, the
characters are underdeveloped, the drama is clunky. The whole
enterprise feels as if an editor tried to salvage a major failure and
barely came up with something coherent. --Tom Keogh
