NZ actor so wooden he's 'teak-like' in royal film

Actors Nico Evers-Swindell (right) and Camilla Luddington star in the TV film "William & Kate",...
Actors Nico Evers-Swindell (right) and Camilla Luddington star in the TV film "William & Kate", about Kate Middleton and Prince William. Photo by AP.
New Zealand actor Nico Evers-Swindell, who plays Prince William, in the Hollywood film William & Kate, has been slated for being so wooden he is "teak-like".

The movie, which has been described by critics as "the naffest royal movie ever", is due to screened here on TV1 the day of the Royal wedding in London.

The film follows the prince and Kate Middleton from their meeting at St Andrews University in Scotland nine years ago to their engagement last November.

The couple are played by unknown actors 31-year-old Evers-Swindell, 31, and Briton Camilla Luddington, 27.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Evers-Swindell's acting "varies from plain wooden to teak-like", being saddled with lines such as: "I am sorry … I just need some space."

The Guardian reviewer Stephen Bates said the film was "so bad it's awful, toe-curlingly, teeth-furringly, pillow-bitingly ghastly".

The newspaper classed it among the "movies so bad that they transcend awfulness...it will probably be a smash".

The London Evening Standard's Richard Godwin said there were a few good things about the production:

"It is recognisably a film, in that it takes place on a screen. Events run in a forward direction."

Critics in the United States panned the movie as a cheesy chick-flick, and Reuters' Michael Holden blogged that the film was more like a Disney movie.

"I suspect historians, and those who are not keen on saccharine-coated Hollywood movies, will happily give it a miss."

A reviewer on amazon.com said it was "so mind-bogglingly bad that it is probably going to be a superb piece of comedy".

"As the happy couple's love entwines against a sunset as livid orange as any in Gone with the Wind, there will not be a dry eye in the house," the Guardian reported.

"But possibly not for the reasons the makers suppose."

 

 

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