Redbad

Enjoyed Redsbad, but with s grain of salt. It seems that this genre of film (Vikings, The Last Kingdom, etc) insist on portraying the Nordic, Danish, Frisian, whomever) as superheros on the battlefield. As a student of history, I can acknowledge their prowess (even with the need to exaggerate the tiny percentage of women who actually engaged in battle or raids) within limits. It seems that Saxon warriors or Frankish troops are relegated to incompetent or unskilled (scene after scene of some Nordic warrior slaying 4-5 enemy combatants) in so many of these films. It must be remembered that they too where warrior cultures which eventually subjugated these invaders, a task which could not be accomplished without military acumen. The portrayal of the Christianization of pagan peoples also seems greatly exaggerated. Were there abuses and at times over jealous clerics and nobles, naturally, however to paint such a skewed portrait in a film attempting to convey historical events may lead the less scholarly viewer to accept this without question. The perspective in production after production of painting pagan, bellicose, raiding peoples as "noble savages" while casting Christianity in a negative light seems more a reflection of the producers and writers' agendas than fact. I look forward to these same film makers creating a series of films illustrationing the centuries of slaughter, slavery and forced conversations at the hands of Mohammed and his religious descendants, though they would likely be prevented for fear of the Muslim response.

Redbad was an unexpected epic on the stale state of today's cinema. Epics are on shortage, both in quantity and quality, this one was quite above average. Acting wise it's not bad, main character has charisma enough to carry the movie and overall not bad. If you compare it to "Vikings" seasons 4,5 and 6 (Ragnar's sons), this guy would give the main "toons" there a run for their money - at least he looks the part. The movie, although based on the Frisian warrior, has a "Viking" feel to it, from the weapons to the costumes and art, it has a Viking theme overall. Fights were also not bad, they had some great moments and looked realistic at least, compared to the average low budget movies out there with over the shoulder cameras and messy combat, some solid combat here with nice head to head battles. Horses were a must, I saw a scene of a horse stumping the shield of a warrior with is feet, great action overall, but there were also some silly moments, like a shield-maiden head stumping a warrior with a helmet on. Some plot-holes and nonsense choices around half an hour in, that made me afraid of being another silly movie, but keep the faith cause it gets better. Negative points... a bit too long, mainly because of too many slow motion scenes that could have been cut to half (or even more) - could the series that came after (based on this movie) be the reason? Sometimes I had the feeling if I put a heavy metal song over some slow motion scenes, you would get a quite good videoclip. Music wise, goes from great to repetitive, during half an hour I though I was watching a Christopher Nolan Batman with repetitive rythm, not necessary at all. Overall, a solid movie, rare this days, with quite a large cast, setup and wonderful, wonderful photography and landscape. A bit shorter, less slow motion scenes and bit better CGI here and there, would make this a masterpiece, as it stands it's a very watchable Epic. 7 for the effort and up the rankings. A realistic 6, could be a 9 with better script and less slow motion scenes.

Set in an alternate universe where Frisians speak perfect Holland Dutch (Odd considering Frisian is a recognized language besides dutch), the Frankish speak English and the Danish speak English is well.

It tries to tie together historical events, figures and legends that took place in the same period but often not in the same place. Then there are the long list of things that simply do not belong in that time period as they belong to the later middle ages like the weapons and castles. Much of how the historical setting is displayed is fictional or belongs to different time periods or different people.

This extreme artistic liberty with history could have worked out pretty well if it had created an actual engaging story. Unfortunately the movie does fail in that aspect by using all the movie cliches spread out in such a way that the halfway through the film we were left wondering if it was actually building up to something and basically got bored.

It doesn't help that the action sequences often made little sense where often the Frisians fighting would be surrounded and spread out only to suddenly be grouped together and victorious after a camera angle change.

It really is a shame as the acting itself was good (except for Frisians speaking perfect dutch without an accent), the imagery pretty, etc. There really is a hint of a potentially good movie in there if they had been more critical towards the story.

Interesting story, very nicely filmed ( high contrast/ desatuarated imagery), decent acting all around, nice battlescenes but nothing you haven't seen done before ( and better done), nice looking leadactors.... but the movie is way to long... it would have benefited greatly from some sharp editing. It could have been easily 30 min shorter en much the better for it. I caught myself glanzing at my watch a couple of times ... To many unneccesary long scenes and other scenes could have benefited from from some added time

All in all ok but not great and certainly not a sensation ( even by Dutch standards)

This movie could have been better with higher quality screenwriting. There's an excellent cast including some beautiful actresses. The costumes were okay, and locations were very good.

But some of the writing is absurd. The Frisians did not sacrifice young women to Freya, burning them alive (another people hundreds of years earlier, the Celts, did sacrifice perverts and criminals to the gods by burning them in wickers). The Friesians although pagan were somewhat more advanced than as shown.

Redbad's life was very different than shown in the movie - he was an older man when he won his victory over the Franks at Cologne, and the Friesians were allied with the Saxons not Danes at that time. Redbad had ruled the Frisians for at least 20 years before that battle. He had never been exiled or put out on a boat to die.

Charles Martel was a fierce warrior but not an evil man, he did not murder his little nephew as shown in the movie. And neither were Pepin nor Saint Willibrord as cruel and vile as shown in the movie. Although he is killed in the movie, in reality Willibrord died in 739, 20 years after Redbad's death in 719.

This could have been a great movie, if the much more interesting REAL history was shown instead of a silly storyline we've seen too many times in other movies.