Rating: 2 Pulses

Moviegoers expecting Sony Pictures’ adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s novel “The Other Boleyn Girl” to carry the same suspense and sexual intrigue of the novel will be disappointed in the film.

Despite the movie’s A-list cast, and award-winning scriptwriter, Peter Morgan, the relationships between Henry VIII (Bana), Anne Boleyn (Portman) and the other Boleyn girl, Mary (Johansson), are poorly developed. Their lack of chemistry is nearly palpable as a series of affairs and intrigues unfold in a plodding, chronological manner, in short unconnected scenes.

Fortunately this mundane storytelling is clad in a rich set of costumes, brought to audiences by the exquisite eye of costume designer Sandy Powell, who’s former work includes Shakespeare in Love.

Clearly it would have been impossible to include all of Gregory’s bodice-ripping scenes in the movie; her book is decidedly not PG-13, although the movie is.

The bigger problem is the film’s arbitrary handling of spouses, two of whom simply disappear. Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, is simply said to have been dismissed, and Sir William Carey, Mary’s first husband, is treated similarly, assigned away from court and never mentioned again.

The entire business smacks of a poorly thought out film.

Highlights of the in-theater experience include the graceful performance of Kristin Scott Thomas as Elizabeth Boleyn, the girls’ mother, and the pre-movie trailer for Mama Mia!

In a market saturated with stories of England’s Tudor dynasty (two Elizabeth movies, The Queen, Show Time’s “The Tudors”), a movie that might have slid by before cannot hope to make the grade.