Boudica

Since it was on television, I didn't expect it to be "Lord of the Rings," as apparently some others did. They wouldn't have the budget. After seeing such horrosities as "The Druids" based on a Norman Spinrad novel and the American series "Roar" based on goodness knows what (The Romans in Ireland!), this was not bad, but not great. Celtic-Roman history seems to be beyond film/television writers ken. Maybe they need to read a little.

I actually liked the main player, Alex Kingston. I didn't watch ER, so I have no preconceptions about her. I liked most of the actors. I think the problem does not lie with the actors, but the script and this appalling need to make things relevant. It can be done, but it doesn't have to be done, and it was done badly here.

It would have been far more interesting to have a scene where Boudicca uses divination with a rabbit as described in Dio or show the statue of Victory fall rather than the statue of the Roman emperor. Both the Britons and the Romans were very prone to omens and portents. I suppose they thought the audience would not get it. Hello, that's what good writing does! Explains things we don't know.

I didn't mind the accents. We all know the Roman generals and emperors spoke with upper class British accents! We saw Lawrence Olivier in "Spartacus." We watched "I, Claudius.";)

I liked that they had the Britons lime their hair and paint up with woad, but costuming needed to be brighter and jewelry needed to be richer. However, this seems to be a general trend among costumers in film/television; they think that ancient peoples dressed dully. In fact, most ancient peoples dressed in brilliant colors. Positively garish by our standards. They did have Boudicca & her husband dress a little better when they meet Emperor Claudius. In fact, they look like a color drawing straight out of a costume book I have. However, a king and queen of a people would be far better dressed in this.

As for caricature of Nero, the Roman writers don't seem all that fond of him, either. I knew before I watched this how Boudicca died, so I assumed (wrongly perhaps) that they simply didn't show it. However Tacitus says she took poisoned and died. Dio says she got sick and died. The fate of her daughters is not mentioned by either. And they have no names either.

I wasn't expecting exact history here. Or a documentary. I was expecting a really good historical adventure and romp. It is better than other attempts at ancient Celtic-Roman stories. But it would have been far better if the writers had stuck closer to Roman accounts and stopped trying to brain us with relevancy.

Boudica is, by TV standards, a big-scale romp, with large battle scenes and predictable displays of Roman decadence sitting alongside an attempt, expected from writer Andrew Davies, to add some historical focus and modern relevance.

Alex Kingston is in commanding form as the flame-haired warrior queen. It's the type of role she is moulded for - feisty and forceful with just a hint of no-nonsense sex. She does seem to look more like Mel Gibson in Braveheart as the film progresses, but her big pep talk to the troops is at least as powerful as Mel's. In the generally fine supporting cast, Gary Lewis is stoutly impressive as a seemingly magically abled priest supporter of Boudica; Jack Shepherd makes the most of the stammering Claudius, and Andrew Lee Potts, despite coming across like a spoilt brat and a half-dressed drag act, has fun with the positively loathsome Nero.

Add in some fairly strong gore, amusing sex and tolerable use of modern language and Boudica falls somewhere between bodice-ripper and historical epic. Good fun all round. 7/10

It's got some great sets and costumes, a fantastic, frankly groundbreaking soundtrack of calling vocals, and spectacular deeply theatric moments, basically any time the characters aren't actually speaking is OK. The dialogue is fundamentally awful, Romans are one-dimensionally bad, absurdly condescending and arrogant, and barbarians good. Obviously the writer wanted to make this a commentary about current politics, referring to Icenians as "terrorists", a concept which did not exist at the time. In fact, many lines such as "For God's sake!" would not exist for this setting.

I don't suppose anyone could tell me the reason why all the Roman soldiers have cockney accents either.

To watch this film, you've got to have a sense of humor for the dialogue which is utterly painful. The Romans are written so badly on such a deep level one can take amusement in it. But it can't be described, laughed at, and appreciated as a bad B-movie, there are quality stirring dramatic moments there and any humor you see in it is killed by the prolonged gang rape scene, which is not a gratuitous addition but a serious, fundamental part of the historical accounts of the real Boudicca.

This film is without compare in its strengths and weaknesses and I'm wholly at a loss to classify it or say exactly how one should appreciate it. You will have to decide for yourself and tell me.

I have no problems with film makers using their imagination when there is a lack of information. I fail to see the sense of deliberately distorting the facts though. Believe me, they could make a splendid film just sticking to the facts. A Book about Suetonius called 'Imperial Governor' would make the basis of a fine film. Others have pointed out the stupid mistakes in this film and the children running rings round trained ruthless soldiers was just plain silly. The final battle started of quite well and good use was made of technology. However, the Romans won battles like this using tight shield formations, NOT hand to hand fighting. I have no problems with the acting at all, just the story lines.

If this is going to have a theatrical release in the US this is going to bomb big time. A very dissapointing film, with the occasional good momment, but the worst thing is the typical trates of ITV dramas that have crept in. The tendancy for everyone behind the scenes to try and stand out from the crowd by throwing in their own little bits. As a result what could have been a good film was pretty much destroyed.

The beginning and ending was just downright patronising and the scenes in Rome (which seemed there entirely to emphasise that Nero was as nutty as a fruit cake) were pretty redundant. There were however a few good battle scenes and some good acting. On the whole though it was just bad camera work, bad directing, poor script, feeble attempts to shock the audience and very little genuine authenticity.

I rated this at a 4/10 but had it not been for the unprofessional start and end it could have scrapped a 6/10 because there was enough reasonable content here to make this film enjoyable at least for a one off viewing.

If you see this film on TV and like ancient history and legends it's worth a watch, but whatever you do don't pay to see this in a movie theatre because this is a long way off being anything other then a TV movie.