tomhg38

I was with the film in the beginning.

There were some unoriginal characters, the war crazed veterans and the experience guy who is replaced with the young idealistic fresh new recruit, a pretty common tactic used to give the audience a window into the situation and make something so foreign to the average Joe relatable, the rest of the crew was equally derivative, the "token" ethnic guy, the crazy out of control cruel guy who ultimately has your back, the scarred and hardened leader who still maintains a kernel of humanity that he hides from his subordinates etc.

But I was with it. The tanks looked great, the tracer fire, while reminding me of some 70's Star Wars gunfire, was great, I enjoyed how the story progressed with the girl and the action scenes, everything was not particularly unique but really well told.

Then the finale hit. An insurmountable number of enemies descends on the good guys, who choose to fight in a crippled state for some idealistic reasons rather than simply walk away and live to fight another day. I was immediately put in the mind of the movie "300", but I'm sure there are almost countless instances of this ridiculous story premise.

When earlier we had seen action in the film, it was tense and realistic. Ambushing enemies hitting tanks in their convey with anti tank weaponry and burning soldiers pouring out of the hatches, dead. Even in relatively equal numbers and strengths, except for the tank with the main characters, pretty much everyone was dying as freely on the allies side as on the Germans, to the point where only the main characters were left.

It ruined the entire film for me. We saw that there were no guns facing to the sides of the tank, the guns mounted in the front having a 90 degree range of motion, but the Germans just run back and forth in front of the tanks machine guns being slaughtered for minutes on end.

They took the time to hide grenades (or land mines?) in anticipation of the enemy force coming, but left a significant portion of their ammo outside the tank? We literally see Germans running side on to the tank, with a clear shot at Brad Pitt's character, when the tank has absolutely NO way of firing upon them at that angle, but the Germans just run past (where to? Nobody knows).

They FINALLY, after hundreds of their force have been shredded by the immobilised tank housing 5 soldiers, pull out some anti tank weaponry, rocket launchers, and fire it from the tanks unprotected flanks meters away, and yet two of the three rockets STILL SOMEHOW MISS. I don't even understand how its possible to hit an immobilised vehicle the size of a small house from a few meters away.

I wish I could go back and tell myself to stop watching the movie before that fight started, I would consider it a very strong movie and likely one of the best things I'll watch for the year. Instead I am left with a sour taste in my mouth, as a film I was thoroughly enjoying shot itself in the foot.

Something about Celtic landscapes and music resonates in me, I'm not sure if its because I'm vaguely a descendant, but to this day the soundtrack to Braveheart sends shivers down my spine.

This is essentially the story of a post WW2 nurse who somehow gets sent back approximately 200 years to the tumultuous violent Scottish past.

The pilot shows a great deal of promise, the casting is great, score and cinematography all superb.

Unfortunately for me all of the promise came in the last 20 minutes of the episode, for the first 40 or so ponderous minutes we see nothing but back story, her time in the war, her somewhat fragile bond with her husband and their "honeymoon" to Scotland. Some of this information is pertinent, and certainly some introduction into the character's life BEFORE being thrown back in time is necessary to really grasp how unsettling and inexplicable what she sees is, but unfortunately 40 minutes was just too long.

After that somewhat arduous 40 minutes, when the protagonist Claire does wind up in the middle of the Plaid wearing sword brandishing Scottish highlands, the episode was phenomenal. We are introduced to the villain, we meet the rather dashing love interest, and we get a glimpse into the interesting topic of being someone with contemporary knowledge (primarily in her case of medicine, as a nurse) in a Feudal time, and we finally get some Bagpipes.

Even with the pilot's time allocation not being to my personal tastes, I'm very excited about this show. I think now they have fully introduced the back story future episodes will have more freedom to focus on the heart of this time travel tale. I have a feeling along side Vikings this will be one of the best period shows of the decade.