Avaliações do Metacritic

Robert the Bruce is gorgeously filmed by cinematographer John Garrett, making the most of every exquisitely lit crag of the Scottish countryside.

It takes a good hour or so to get going, but then it builds up some watchable spectacle – although Gray goes way overboard with the moody, fireside lighting, and the rousing orchestral score gets all ceilidh-cutesy for the happy montages.

There’s a pleasing humility and introspection to this Bruce — a ruler no longer sure if his patriotic purpose is worth the carnage. His joints may be stiffer than his resolve; but, in placing the warrior temporarily aside, Macfadyen and his director have helped us more clearly to see the man.

If I’ve made Robert the Bruce sound laughable, I’ve misrepresented it. It’s not bad at all. Though he is unusually uncharismatic, Macfadyen (who co-wrote the script) is an excellent actor, and Richard Gray directs ably. But that word — “ably.” I never used it before. It’s the bottom of the neutral zone, before you dip into negative territory.

McGowan knows how to invest ire with intelligence, and he has mastered the art of making riding a horse look like a form of strutting. When he’s onscreen, the film vibrates. When you’re watching MacFadyen’s Robert, it swells with nobility and deflates at the same time.

For an uncertainly paced and fabricated historical side quest, much of Robert The Bruce is painlessly watchable.

Robert the Bruce seeks to explore the relationship between a ruler and their people, offering intimacy and personal concern as the best defense against a puppet government. Unlike its namesake, however, this cold and slapdash costume party of a film never figures out how to unite its many scattered parts.

There are rousing landscape shots, a fair amount of bone-crunching, and a dash of brooding patriotism – and a welcome attempt to look at history from the view of ordinary folk – but the storytelling is downbeat and basic.

Unless you are a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce, or perhaps part of the Macfayden clan, you’re better off letting this particular version of history get lost in the sands of time.

Suffers mightily from its limited budget and narrative scope.