A Knight's War

I generally like these types of shows. I'm a huge fantasy nerd. There are clearly stylistic and thematic nods here to the lord of the rings and Guillermo del Toro that I thought were interesting, but kind of detracted from the story.

The biggest issue with this movie was the script and the dialog. The narrative seemed unfocused and sometimes like maybe there were multiple versions patched together. The pacing was sometimes good (more-so at the beginning), but often not. A good editor could have helped in the end as well.

The mood, sets, costumes, lighting, and visual effects were all pretty good considering that (I'm guessing) this show's budget was pretty minimal. The acting, while not great, is passable but I think could have been much better with a better script and dialog and perhaps directing.

Overall, passable but not great. I don't think it deserves 1 star, but I think the 6 I gave it were generous.

While it does have the feel of a low budget fantasy adventure (which have resulted in some real gems), there is surprising depth here. It has the standard "defeat an ancient evil" trope but has some clever twists. There is a nice mix of philisophical questioning along the way, leading you to wonder what the characters will do at the end. It's also a nice perspective of 2 heroes as opposed to the huge casts as is popular in the genre. I'm always a believer that budget doesn't necessarily define the entertainment value of a movie, this one proves that point. The world building is pretty detailed, I could see this having been a series rather than a move.

I almost didn't watch this film due to the reviews. Yet, my love for fantasy swayed my decision. I'm so glad my curiosity took over. This film is dark and moody atmospherically. For a small budget; the costume/set design/special effects were all done well. Could the actual story be more developed? Yes. That being said. By the end of this flick everything comes full circle. I personally felt the acting was fine. If you are only into big names on the screen and a 20 million dollar budget. This probably isn't for you. For me personally, this movie did everything it was supposed to. I was throughly entertained.

I'll keep this simple (like my mental state...) This starts off well with a great look and atmosphere, and even a clever touch of humour here and there.

But, sadly, after about 20 minutes or so it begins to lose its focus, and its hold on the audience. To me, the forward momentum just kind of stops as the scenes around this time are just very SLOW, drawn out torture in a sense. That does not a good movie make and for me personally is just a very lazy default to an unnecessarily lowest denominator.

That is too bad, really, because I think there was a fairly decent, if not terribly original idea here, but someone definitely dropped the ball in my lowly and wretched opinion. The look and mood though I feel could have been very effective, if there were a decent story to go along with it.

To be fair, I am not a huge fan of these kinds of Sword & Sorcery films (with the exception of course of the excellent 'BEASTMASTER', 'CONAN', 'KRULL', and perhaps a few others) but, especially with such a strong, dark beginning, it is a shame that whomever was behind the actual storytelling to me just simply didn't seem that terribly interested.

I gave it a VERY generous '5' because of the nice look of it and the good look and atmosphere, but if you are looking for an entertaining and compelling story, I'm afraid this isn't it...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~MY PARTICULAR WAY OF RATING:

5 - Flawed, but with some entertainment value.

6. A decently passable story maybe worth a watch.

7. A solid film, well made, effective, and entertaining.

And, obviously, you can probably figure out what above and below these would mean... : )

(Maybe, this statement below which was my original Title was why my first review was declined, IDK... Let me try added it down here)

Yes, a lot of these '10' reviews are clearly plants. But, the '1' star ones are not justified either...

This film is ambitious, it's atmospheric, moody and serious. The costumes are beautiful, the sets and locations are too. The cinematography, score and CGI helps with building this world, and the actors were great.

The flaws: this film needed some early critical editing to the story. There was potential for a unique fantasy world to emerge, but I think what we saw was a patch job of various narrative tropes mixed together.

I think clarity, directness, and the courage to propose/build one's own fantastical world would have had a more weighty creative impact on the viewer and it would have helped immerse oneself into someone else's imagination.

I do not want to discourage anyone from seeing this movie! It is incredibly impressive what can be done by motivated creatives, and it's still very fun. Give it a shot if you have the opportunity!