Medieval

Medieval is helped by a restrained yet captivating performance from Ben Foster. Even better is the production design and costumes; it's a very good-looking, immersive, realistic production.

It's a film that has some impressive moments of intense action and several compelling scenes. But the film can't help but crumble under the weight of its convoluted storytelling.

The plot revolves around a soldier caught in the midst of the political scheming between two brothers who seek to be emperor, and how he and those he leads are forced to suffer the consequences of their scheming.

When I put it that way, it sounds simple; but that's not how it plays out on screen.

The films does a lamentably poor job of establishing its multiple antagonists and their respective loyalties, motivations, and especially how they seek to achieve their goals.

This is largely due in part to an absurd amount of name-dropping that gets difficult to follow. There are certain characters whose names are crucial to the plot but these characters themselves are rarely, and sometimes never, seen.

It's unclear what role everyone is playing in the story because there are so many people to keep track of and the script doesn't properly develop any of them.

Not even the action is particularly exciting. It's mostly clumsily filmed and opaquely edited, leaving the impact of every sword swing and arrow pierce off screen. It's action without weight or a sense of significance.

By the end of the movie, I felt nothing, because the story concludes without anything of note having changed for either the characters or for the political situation we've been following.

It's a largely dull experience without clear stakes and without clear goals and without any meaningful depth of character or theme.

I see why there was virtually no marketing for this whatsoever.

I didn't have much expectation heading into this, I just generally love watching medieval films and series purely for the gore; I think watching people wage war with spears, battle axes, maces and swords is much more thrilling than gun fights, still love them though.

Straight from the start it reminded me of History's Vikings tv series, if you're a fan of that you might love this as well. I didn't know it's a true story. There wasn't as much character development but I think they didn't have time for that, it focuses more on the story and that was enough to get you invested in the characters by the end. The acting was splendid by the whole cast. A little sad because I have a feeling the movie won't get the recognition it deserves. I think it's better than The Northman in the sense it's paced better and has more story in my opinion, cinematography might not be as great but still pretty good. The fights were amazing and bloody but I thought some gory scenes weren't shown to us, we just get to see the aftermath especially in the first half. There was a lot at stake and I love how you never really know who's gonna make it especially in the third act.

In the end I love it and remembering these are true events really made the emotional end to it even more heartfelt. Fun watch on the big screens if you're a fan of watching medieval knights bang steel slice through skulls like piñatas. Movies based in the dark era aren't always to everyone's taste but I hope this doesn't go under the radar and people get to enjoy it.

I know it's 2022 and everyone is a critic and negativity is all anyone brings to the table. I'm the opposite. I'd rather tell you what I liked about something, so here we go.

• Loved the action sequences, and the violence
• Loved the battlefield tactics.

• Excellent cast (besides Til Schweiger)

-Beautiful cinematography

• Perfect ending

I noticed a few editing issues and some dialogue problems. But overall I had a blast with this film. Ben Foster obviously took this role seriously and I always enjoy his work. Michael Caine is the man, and even at his age he still delivers a solid performance. Matthew Goode impressed me in "The Offer" earlier this year so I was interested to see him in this villainous role, he knocks it out of the park. I will definitely be adding this movie to my collection when available.

Enjoy!

I love Ben Foster. I think he chooses excellent movies.

I could maybe make out 30% of the dialogue in this movie. The audio is absolutely atrocious. The acting is good, the cinematography is great... So the fact that you simply cannot understand any dialogue is beyond glaring. It's not even the accents. If the dialogue isn't being drowned out by the unnecessary loud and booming bass, the spoken words are just unintelligible. I cannot believe a movie with this kind of cast would have these kind of issues.

There were also several spots with obvious editing issues. Where the characters mouth did not match up with the words the audience was hearing. Which just goes to show that no one who produced this movie bothered to actually watch it. Amateur stuff.

With a plot that is already hard to follow as others have mentioned, these issues made the movie nearly unwatchable. Super disappointed.

Since two decades now, medieval movies from Europe, Eastern Europe are galore, more gruesome one than the other, huge budgets for huge craps most of the time, available mainly un streaming platforms. Most of those lousy productions bet only on gruesome battles, bloody, brutal, battle scenes, where cruelty is the main word. Besides this, nothing at all, bad directing and I don't even speak of the acting. This one is from Czech Republic but seems to be co produced with UK film industry; it is spoken in English and stars Ben Foster and Michael Caine. So, it won't be a surprise if I say it is not for the sissies, it is bloody, with man details concerning meat chopper fight sequences. But the story is not that bad for such a film, not that bad. However, it will never make me forget THE WARLORD, starring Chuck Heston; FLESH AND BLOOD from director Paul Verhoeven, or any Ridley Scott's movie for this scheme.