Barbarossa

It's a shame. The story has potential. Good ol' fashioned right vs wrong. The film looks pretty good: rousing battle scenes, nice costumes, and good looking actors (Rutger Hauer actually makes a striking Emperor Federick I Barbarossa), but the story meanders. I suspect a bit tighter direction could have saved this film. As is, I never developed any strong sympathies for any of the protagonists. In fact, one's sympathies run as much for Frederick as they do the Milanese supposedly fighting for freedom from the empire (repleat with a recurring Braveheart-esquire cry of 'freedom'). I didn't give it a lower rating because at least the film left me thinking about it enough to want to look it up and write a review (and that is significant). Seeing a film like this always makes one wish to see the results from a more seasoned director.

The only reason I didn't give this a "1" was because some of the cinematography was decent. However, even the best cinematography can't save a film from truly bad acting, a horrible script, poor directing and sloppy editing.

The only good acting I saw in this movie came from F. Murray Abraham. All the rest were... well, not even good amateurs. They seemed to have no training or experience in acting at all. Their characters were entirely unbelievable.

I'm not the least bit surprised to see that this flick lost money. Someone should do us all a favor and lose all the prints, copies, DVDs, etc. Don't waste any portion of your life on this movie -- find something, anything else to watch.

A credible epic that concerns the German warlord Barbarossa and his extended empire (that reached deep into Europe). A fab acting performance by Raz Degan but not such a great script. Ultimately these type of movies live or die in the battle scenes and these are not the most exciting or memorable.

First, while I only gave this film 5 stars, it really isn't bad. Apart from an instance where a horse made a sound I considered unlikely under the circumstances based on my experience with them, my beef is that this movie is so much less than what it could have been. It could have been an epic, but they missed the bar. It could also have made a good patriotic film such as the Russian film 1612, had they shifted the focus a little more on the Milanese and slightly less on Barbarossa, filmed it in Italian (It is an Italian film, after all.), and livened it up a tad.

Bottom line, if you're a fan of this sort of movie as I am, watch it. It isn't that great, but I do not regret the time spent watching it. It just could have been better. If, on the other hand, you feel no attraction to films of this type, and are merely looking for a good movie to burn some time on, you might want to look elsewhere. Not to scare you off, though. Who knows, you might enjoy it.

If you like this movie, try 1612. That is the movie I was most reminded of watching this one.

Do yourself a favor and do not watch this film.

I saw the box-art and thought it looked like a fun, violence filled, medieval romp about a subject I knew nothing about.

Even though I know next to nothing about this history, I can tell this film is stupidly inaccurate and on top of this it's awful too. I wanted the hero to die from the moment I saw him, he can't act and is just irritating from first to last.

Even the violence was completely unsatisfying.. There is no redeeming feature - do not waste your time on this. Go read the wiki page on barbarossa instead.. far more entertaining, you will learn stuff and have at least an hour more of your life.

I hope Mr Hauer got paid a total fortune for his bit part in this film, he was the only decent thing in it.