A Knight's War

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.

Anything with swords I'll watch.

The production value is exceptional... the production designer, costumer and armourer know their jobs very well.

Exceptional story and unlike others I wasn't bothered by the acting... I'd much rather see subdued acting rather than over the top.

I stayed in the story, really wanting to see how it turned out.

The fight scenes were well done, believable.

Others on here have complained about the lead actress... I think she played it well, she played angry, brooding impatient, which served the character.

If I had one complaint it would be with the gate keeper. I felt his costume was too simple.

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...

I love this type of movie,so I'm possibly it's target audience...I simply cannot agree with the 1 star reviews,they seem hostile for the sake of being hostile. Its not up there with the likes of Excalibur,but like another review suggested,more like a slightly lower budget Solomon Kane. Wish there was more action,but the story flows pretty well, decent special effects for the low budget. Acting was solid nothing oscar worthy but it gets the job done...Now,makes me want an actual sequel or reboot to Solomon Kane....and again those 1 star reviews are beyond ridiculous,it's nowhere near that bad, straight in the bin with them.

If you like Sword and Sorcery, this independent film is better than a lot of big studio swings and misses like Dungeon Siege, and not at all the unwatchable "fan fiction", like most of the other low budget attempts that are streaming right now. The visuals are great for a low budget green screen movie, and it is intelligently written. The plot would probably make a good video game. On the other hand it is still far from a perfect film. Much of the "acting" is just breathy emoting, and the plot is definitely geared towards fantasy gamers and heavy fans of sword and sorcery fiction, without much exposition, which I actually think is a good thing, but casual viewers most likely will be lost. Also, everything is played super straight, without the sense of joy that old classics like The Sword and the Sorcerer, or Krull, or even the newer movies like Forbidden Empire, are full of. But it works for what it is and is a welcome addition to the genre.

... I gave it an extra star just because good sword and sorcery films are difficult to pull off.