A Swede as a Spanish painter? 'Goya' vey

After "Amadeus ," "Ragtime ," and "Valmont ," you'd think director Milos Forman would know his way around a period epic. And it's true that his new film has all the deluxe trappings one expects of the genre: gaudy costumes, an international cast chattering away in various accents, the history, the wigs.

To no avail. Far easier to mock than it is to enjoy, "Goya's Ghosts " is an overstuffed turkey that's entertaining for all the wrong reasons. It may in fact be the comedy of the summer, a melodramatic folly whose ambitions consistently curdle into camp. Still, there are worse reasons to go to the movies.

What's wrong? For starters: Randy Quaid as King Carlos IV of 18th-century Spain? The actor turns in an intentionally droll performance -- his monarch is boorish but dangerously sly, like Jeffrey Jones 's Emperor Joseph II in "Amadeus" -- but for the life of me, I can't look at Quaid without hearing his deathless sentiments from "National Lampoon's Vacation ": "I don't know why they call this stuff Hamburger Helper. It does just fahn by itself. "

"Goya's Ghosts" could have used a little Hamburger Helper. Purportedly a stirring tale of the collision of religious fundamentalism and Enlightenment ideals during the Napoleonic Wars, the film casts Stellan Skarsgard as Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes -- because when you think of one of the towering figures of Spanish art you immediately look to Sweden for the casting.

Painter to the court and printmaker of darkly subversive political etchings, Goya remains on the film's sidelines, bedeviling the monks of the Spanish Inquisition while keeping in the king's good graces. "Goya's Ghosts" mostly concerns itself with Brother Lorenzo , a fire-breathing inquisitor played by Javier Bardem as a ripe exercise in overacting. I'm not sure whether Bardem's in on the joke, but this is one marvelous side of ham.

Looking for heretics in every corner, Brother Lorenzo spies the beauteous Ines (Natalie Portman ), daughter of a Toledo merchant (Jose Luis Gomez ) whose ancestors long ago converted from Judaism. Not long enough, apparently; the monk has the girl thrown into the catacombs, where his sexual urges battle with his love of a good flogging.

The Inquisition is on the wane and Napoleon's army is on the march. A smart monk would do well to keep his options open, and Lorenzo is one canny brother. "Goya's Ghosts" unfolds over several decades, with twists and coincidences and long-lost heirs laid on top of a vibrant historical canvas. It's the kind of all-stops-out barnstormer that worked for Dickens and D.W. Griffith , but that needs serious finessing for a 21st-century audience to buy in.

Sadly, finesse is the one quality missing here -- that and a convincing female lead. In the dual role of Ines and, later, her daughter, an amoral courtesan named Alicia , Portman officially reveals her limitations; she acts more with her teeth than her intelligence. On the other hand, the movie does everything short of shipping her out on an ice floe to win our sympathy.

Skarsgard's Goya is a tough customer undone by his love for his muse, Ines. We're meant to see the era through his eyes -- democracy warring with the church, the common folk hammering at the door of history -- but the turgid plot keeps getting in the way. Bardem's Brother Lorenzo is gone for long stretches, and his energy is missed. Nor does "Goya's Ghosts" work as a metaphor for modern state-sponsored torture, although Forman and his legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere ("Belle de Jour ," "Cyrano de Bergerac ") certainly lay the groundwork.

The problem is focus: The movie has none. A viewer appreciates the pockets of wayward creativity -- Bardem's nostril-flaring, the cinematography of Javier Aguirresarobe ("The Others ") -- and mourns what could have been while stifling a polite guffaw. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition . . . to be funny.

Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/ movies/blog.