Parents' Guide to King Ralph

Falling somewhere between My Fair Lady and Coming to America, this is a mild-mannered comedy with lots of jokes but not many laughs. Culture clash comedy has been taken to outlandish extremes by the likes of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat, so an American man playing cricket as if it's baseball isn't as outlandish as King Ralph makes it out to be. As Vegas entertainer Ralph, Goodman plays the '90s archetypal big kid role with just enough enthusiasm to carry the movie. But rather than shake up the stuffy British characters that surround him, Ralph is bogged down by their demands. John Hurt plays the villainous Lord Graves with a delightfully devilish glint and Peter O'Toole's kind-hearted aide Willingham is good company. Other than that, the snooty inhabitants of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament make for tedious company.

The movie's love story is pleasant enough. But the two women characters aren't given anything to do other than be Ralph's prospective wives. Camille Coduri's shy stripper, Miranda, is unassuming and one to root for though, while Joely Richardson's haughty Princess Anna of Finland falls foul of a joke that a woman with a deep voice is undesirable. As the years pass, King Ralph increasingly looks like an old-fashioned minor entry in the culture clash comedy catalog.