Crown of Shadows

There's a growing, prevailing philosophy in low budget fantasy flicks that if you throw enough AI generated images at it this will help mask the dull direction, poor acting and empty 'same old same old' story. It doesn't. It highlights that most of the movie, as with a plethora of other rubbish sci-fi and fantasy, was filmed in woodland and/or an abandoned building. As a genuine, lifelong fan (60 years) I pray to the gods of Harryhausengard that the next offering will have merit. 99.7% of the time my demon of disappointment is sated. It's just more boring junk painted to appear interesting. There are a tons of great, low budget films. It's the art, skill and vision of its creators and actors that make wonderful cinema, not the amount of cash you throw at it. I mean, look at Marvel? So save you time and go watch something else.

While I had never even heard about this 2025 fantasy movie titled "Crown of Shadows", from director Richard Campbell, prior to stumbling upon it by random luck, of course I opted to watch it as it was a movie that I hadn't already seen. Plus, I do enjoy a good fantasy setting, so maybe this movie had something good to offer.

Writer Jaffa Caterson put together a slow paced narrative. I am sure that there was potential to the storyline, but the narrative proved sluggish, and that ultimately left the viewing experience dull. The cover of the movie boasts "Games of Thrones meets 300", yeah, I am sure that whomever stated that haven't seen neither "Game of Thrones" or "300", but just heard about both titles. Because "Crown of Shadows" certainly was neither.

I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, and that was actually something that spoke in favor of the movie. I do enjoy watching new and unfamiliar talents on the screen. The acting performances in the movie were certainly fair.

Visually then the CGI effects were dubious. The props and wardrobes, however, were good.

If you enjoy fantasy movies, then there are far, far better choices out there than this 2025 movie titled "Crown of Shadows". It was the slow pacing of the narrative that killed the movie for me.

My rating of director Richard Campbell's 2025 movie "Crown of Shadows" lands on a three out of ten stars.

It was so bad that I watched it all just to see if there was anything good to say about it.

Really poor acting by everyone.

Fight scenes worse than a primary schools pretend sword fight.

CGI must have been from a Sinclair ZX computer.

Gregorian chant like theme with stupid lyrics made no sense.

All in all a great waste of my time.

Some of the actors looked unconvincing in everything they did. Simple gestures like holding a sword seemed to be as if they were children holding up a tennis racket for the first time. There were far too many pauses to try and build up suspense as well as far too many pauses for 'artistic impression'.

This film' performances would have been better acted by an AI bot or Pixar animation.

I would heartily recommend this film to very one e cause it is so bad that what you see in the First 10 minutes is the best and most exciting part...you will see what.