Wilhelm Tell

Hmmm. Never before have I heard anyone proudly declare "We are Swiss" in quite such an underwhelming manner before, and that rather sums up the lacklustre performance of Claes Bang as the title character in this verbose crossbow chronology. Traumatised by his experiences in the Crusade, he's now not a natural rebel but is instead content to live peaceably with his wife and son. When he comes to the rescue of a stranger whose wife had just been raped and murdered by the occupying troops of the King of Austria (Sir Ben Kingsley) his former valiance is rekindled and releases all manner of hell on his unprepared, unarmed and unsuspecting people. Pursued by the maniacal "Gessler" (Connor Swindell) and his blonde henchman "Stussi" (Jake Dunn), he has to rediscover his skill with the arrow, and yes - there's the legendary scene with the apple and the boy's head! There is some stunning Alpine photography mingled in with the pretty obvious CGI, and to be fair to it there are plenty of action scenes as Tell and his rapidly increasing circle of friends proves to be quite adept at reducing their foes to wriggling corpses. Sir Ben has managed to fish out his eye patch from "The Last Legion" (2007) but like Sir Jonathan Pryce, he doesn't really feature enough to make much more than a few cameo appearances to add a little bit of Thespian gravitas to this rather sterile and flat history. The characters are really lacking in charisma in this film and the long-winded dialogue and charm-free efforts from all but, perhaps, Dunn - think a weedier version of "Stamper" from "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997) just don't really resonate much at all. There's plenty of attention to the creative detail with the costumes and castles all fitting the bill nicely but it's probably half an hour longer than it needs to be and screams sequel at us at it's all rather rushed end.

I watched the world premiere of William Tell at the Toronto International Film Festival (2024).

The presenter of the festival had said before the movie, "they don't make movies like this anymore". I assumed that was a positive thing.

Unfortunately, it really wasn't. The biggest issue of the movie was the language used.

This is a 14th-century period piece that involved the Swiss and Austrians. But for whatever reason the dialogue was written in something that sounded like a high-schooler's approximation of Victorian English.

According to the director, he wrote the dialogue to have language unique to the film. Maybe to assist in some sense of believability within this world. Instead the film was often hard to follow. Character motivations were lost in the flowery, disjointed language.

That being said - the cast did their absolute best with the film. Golshifteh Farahani, Connor Swindells, Rafe Spall, and Ellie Bamber were standouts.

Don't go to see the film for Ben Kingsley - he was barely in it and his performance felt completely phoned in.

If you're okay with 2-hours of mindlessness as you watch beautiful scenery and cool fight scenes - I think there is enough to enjoy.

The movie set up a sequel. I do hope it can be made, and some changes to how dialogue and character interactions are done will be made.

The movie is pretty poor, overall. But that's not what I'm here to flag... by far the most jarring aspect is they've lifted Al Pacino's Peach With Inches speech from Any Given Sunday, in parts practically verbatim, for Tell's rousing the troops before battle. WTF is that all about??

Not even a little bit, a nod to it, huge chunks.

"In any fight, it's the man whose willing to die..."

"You gotta look at the person sitting next to you, look in the eye and ask that person are you willing to die for me..." but delivered in the least inspiring, spine chilling way that it should make Pacino cry himself to sleep.

This could have been such a great movie! The middle ages, Switzerland, a gripping story by Schiller... Where to start I wonder. It was shot by someone who has no clue about the Middle Ages in Europe and the Crusades, even though it was obvious they've spent a lot of money on settings and costumes. So much music and dancing and magic maedieval atmosphere that could have been used - but no. The Swiss scenery was there but again, such a poor camera work. Dull casting and dialogues with no wit or humour. And so many dumb irrationalities - like whispering when talking to a crowd, omg - a big disappointment.

So... I came for arrows and rebellion.

I stayed for moody stares and dramatic cloak-swishing. And I left wondering: was this a freedom fighter or a medieval therapist with anger issues?

Claes Bang plays William Tell like he's auditioning to be the next Batman - dark, brooding, and emotionally constipated. The man shoots maybe one arrow, but delivers about 947 intense silences. Respect.

Ben Kingsley shows up and casually steals every scene with the smug energy of someone who knows this isn't going to win any awards - and doesn't care. Icon.

Highlights: Gorgeous Swiss mountains.

Enough slow-motion stares to power a shampoo commercial.

Historical drama that thinks it's Shakespeare but sometimes feels more like a LARP gone rogue.

Lowlights: Pacing so slow, I checked my pulse. Twice.

A hero with all the charisma of a wet log.

Dialogue so dramatic, it circles back to being hilarious.

Bottom line: It's not a bad movie. It's just very committed to being serious... even when it really shouldn't be. Like wearing full armor to a garden party.

Watch it with wine. Or snacks. Or while folding laundry. You won't miss much if you blink - or nap.