Monte Carlo: Critic Reviews

It's all very silly and contrived, but it's also airy and agreeably laid-back, not unlike a decent vacation.

Its Noah's-Ark-like coupling aside, the movie is at times awkwardly charming and generally innocuous: the stepsister isn't the baddie, and female friendship isn't an impediment to a happily ever after.

[A] good-natured but insipid vehicle for tween star Selena Gomez...

Monte Carlo is all about deja vu, cobbling together elements from so many other sources it feels like movie stew.

The movie could have benefitted from shaving about 20 minutes off. There's no need to prolong the inevitable.

Were I a certain 12-year-old girl, "Monte Carlo'' would be a giant frosted pastry, even if that pastry tastes suspiciously like Gomez's 2009 Disney Channel Original Movie, "Princess Protection Program.''

Director and co-writer Thomas Bezucha shows no particular flair for either of his jobs. But kids are unlikely to focus on the terrible editing, flat visuals, or lack of character development.

After Selena Gomez's auspicious big-screen debut in Ramona and Beezus, Monte Carlo feels like two steps back for the Wizards of Waverly Place star.

But it's Gomez, on the poster in a ball gown and cowboy boots, who will lure the audience into the theaters. And she is ... fine.

It's chirpy, it's bright, there are pretty locations and lots happens. This is the kind of movie that can briefly hold the attention of a cat.

Disguises, deceptions -- you could call the narrative of "Monte Carlo" Shakespearean, but I prefer to consider Shakespeare's romantic comedies as "Selena Gomez-esque."

The movie hits a surprising range of emotional grace notes, including several moments of genuine regret, and concludes with an understated moral lesson about the value of self-respect over social status,

For girls of a certain age (and their mothers), Monte Carlo hits the sweet spot.

Director Thomas Bezucha lingers too long on side plots and doesn't give the film emotional resonance.

It all gets sappy and do-goody and the premise never holds water in the first place.

A frothy, innocuous smorgasbord of girlhood wish fulfillment that scores a direct hit with its target demo.

For a movie called "Monte Carlo," this one keeps the stakes pretty low.

You take movies like this for what they are and for whom they're intended. But this script, this leaden direction ensures that even as the teen wish-fulfillment fantasy, complete with young women playing dress-up, "Monte Carlo" fails.

The movie sputs out like fizzled fireworks in the Monte Carlo night.

It provides young girls with some harmless wish-fulfillment without talking down to them, an increasingly rare quality in movies aimed at young people.

Despite its soul-searching pretensions, the movie hinges on what is essentially a con -- one bereft of tension and so sanitized for young female viewers that little room is left for temptation or humour or good old-fashioned summer shenanigans.

A less-than-bubbly teen comic romp aimed at little princesses.

Meester and Cassidy provide solid sidekicks, though that perhaps sells them short: They ultimately carry the movie. All of their storylines lead to self-discovery and sappiness.

So corny that a cereal company could have sponsored it...

Short on wit and invention, the film comes over as Texas's answer to Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.