Ironclad: Battle for Blood

Revenge Movies may very well be the most difficult to make interesting because there is not a lot of room for plot twists and other Movie tricks. And this is quite true for Ironclad: battle for blood.

Plot: the squire from Ironclad has grown up and has become a sword for hire. His cousin is under siege by a savage Scotsman who seeks revenge for the killing of his son. The besieged cousin seeks the help of his kin.

The plot is very weak, even for a revenge Movie. One reviewer thought that the dialog was corny and the acting dry. I won't argue against that view, though I find his/her vote (1/10) unfair.

True, the acting is not good but I have seen much much worse. The characters are shallow and uninteresting. The plot is, as mentioned, feeble. There is no "feeling" for the characters which I Think is one of the worst "enemies" of any Movie, if you can't create emotion for the hero, or any character for that matter, the Movie falls flat.

A Movie like this, i.e. relying much on action, a bit of "gore" (for example Braveheart) and a good villain, needs just that to create some degree of interest. It is here Ironclad: battle for blood fails, not in lack of plot or dialog, nor bad acting.

The positives about this Movie, although not strong, is the setting/surroundings, there are some good hack and slash scenes but not much more. The squire talks briefly about his exploits in France, which would have made a better Movie I Believe.

This Movie is truly one of those which are made just because the first one was successful, just to squeeze out those extra pennies.

Compared to other Movies in the genre (i.e. "sword and blood Movies"), Troy, Kingdom of Heaven and Centurion are much much better, it is somewhat worse than Season of the Witch, but equal to Warrior Queen.

The Movie is not good, but Worth 4 out of 10.

The first Ironclad was not to be taken too seriously, historically speaking, but still had interesting details, and the no-nonsense characteristics of the fights made the film overall quite well-made.

This sequel is far from being as good as the first one, regarding the cast, the dialogues, the cinematography (shaky camera shots tend to be overused)... But it still is fun, and never gets dull.

It's full of medieval clichés: daily public beheading, dark monasteries, dirty brothels and taverns, and so on, and so forth. Also, the historical side is thrown out of the window altogether.

The one-liners are cheesy, the fights violent, and the jokes overly "saucy". It's not badly made, especially concerning the atmosphere. If you liked the first one, give it a go! Don't expect a masterpiece, though. Also, some scenes are not for the faint of heart.

This might (at this moment at least) have the same cover/picture as the previous "Ironclad" movie, but apart from the setting (middle ages) of course. Unfortunately and although this is trying, this never reaches any of the heights of the previous Ironclad. It's pretty much cliché after cliché thrown in and more than a little bit predictable. The fights are nicely done though.

There is also nudity and intercourse and love affairs that seem inappropriate. Maybe that makes it sound better than the movie is for some, but it really isn't. It's nicely (read gray and dark) shot, but that's about it. Not really worth your time, there are way better movies out there.

This is supposed to be Ironclad 2 and follow on from the siege of Rochester. Instead it is about some family of Norman descent privilege that have built a castle on the border land with Scotland. Then a vengeful Clan Chief leads his bunch of be-woded warriors to wreak revenge and do a lot of gurning.

The plot is that the young master – Hubert – has to go and get help from an estranged cousin who is a bit handy, as it were. This is Guy played rather well by Tom Austen. Then the action begins and to be fair there is plenty of action and it is mostly good.

However, there are some issues that could have been resolved and this would have been soo much better. For starters there is shaky cam during the action scenes and this is Richter scale 8 shaking, so a bit disappointing. Then the use of wode – I mean really this is supposed to be 1221. The spiral staircases in the castle go down on the left giving the advantage to the attacker – sack the architect immediately.

Then during the fight scenes which contain 'explosions' for added authenticity they have buckets of straw strategically placed to spread as much fire as possible inside the besieged castle. I could go on but I think that is enough. Most of the acting is good though and they actually manage to engender pathos in parts and I enjoyed 80% of it, but this is one that many will not want to bother with because of the aforementioned issues and a bit more beside – I won't bother if they make a turd – I mean a third one in this series.

While the first IRONCLAD was a solid medieval action movie, this sequel is essentially the same movie and, even more to it's detriment, is horribly shot and edited. Describing the plot is an easy task. Basically, replace King John's small army with a clan of Scottish raiders and you have this movie. The only connection between the two is a minor character, Guy, who is the main character in this sequel (but played by a different actor). Other than that, the plot plays out, beat for beat, almost exactly like its predecessor. And to top things off, it is worse in almost every department. The acting isn't as good as the first one and there aren't any big-name actors to elevate the material, but no one stuck out as being particularly horrible. Additionally, the violence and gore aren't completely practical this time, instead opting for CGI blood spatter and poor dummy work for the more graphic shots (e.g., beheading). There was also some fairly obvious green screen and CGI enhancements that were really distracting at times. However, the worst aspect of this film is the camera-work, which is mostly "shaky-cam." Hand-held camera during the dialogue scenes didn't really bother me, but the vigorous shaking of the camera during the action sequences was nauseating and made them extremely hard to follow. Still, there are a few aspects which aren't too bad. For one the score is appropriate to the material, even though a bit overblown. And even though the action scenes are rather poorly filmed, there are some good kills. They also attempt (with mixed results) to give the characters, including the villains, some depth. Overall, this film is a few steps down from the first in terms of quality across the board, some of it probably due to the reduced budget.