Medieval

Medieval is helped by a restrained yet captivating performance from Ben Foster. Even better is the production design and costumes; it's a very good-looking, immersive, realistic production.

It's a film that has some impressive moments of intense action and several compelling scenes. But the film can't help but crumble under the weight of its convoluted storytelling.

The plot revolves around a soldier caught in the midst of the political scheming between two brothers who seek to be emperor, and how he and those he leads are forced to suffer the consequences of their scheming.

When I put it that way, it sounds simple; but that's not how it plays out on screen.

The films does a lamentably poor job of establishing its multiple antagonists and their respective loyalties, motivations, and especially how they seek to achieve their goals.

This is largely due in part to an absurd amount of name-dropping that gets difficult to follow. There are certain characters whose names are crucial to the plot but these characters themselves are rarely, and sometimes never, seen.

It's unclear what role everyone is playing in the story because there are so many people to keep track of and the script doesn't properly develop any of them.

Not even the action is particularly exciting. It's mostly clumsily filmed and opaquely edited, leaving the impact of every sword swing and arrow pierce off screen. It's action without weight or a sense of significance.

By the end of the movie, I felt nothing, because the story concludes without anything of note having changed for either the characters or for the political situation we've been following.

It's a largely dull experience without clear stakes and without clear goals and without any meaningful depth of character or theme.

I see why there was virtually no marketing for this whatsoever.

Instead, it felt generic, rushed with over emphasis on fighting. This is a true story, based on real events and real people. We have the historical data on all of them yet in the movie, they are vaguely mentioned in intro and outro credits.

The in between or the movie itself is a random series of fights between groups that are not developed well; we feel no emphathy for them, nor do we even know who they are. The movie is also not historically accurate in terms of setting, mannerism, props. It is just generic medieval fighting movie with a backstory that the viewer has to create in their mind as they watch. If you do that, it becomes better sure, but on its own, as a movie as presented, it lacks a lot.

The events this attempts to cover are pivotal for the time and could have easily been on the level of development we saw in braveheart and gladiator; but alas they opted for shallowness. Acting is not great, not bad but not great, acceptable at best. If it were not based on the true events it attempts to cover, it would have stood better for what it was. Unfortunately the creators trying to make it real life historical completely bombed the pooch here. There was no need for it because there is no history in this movie; none, at all. I guess they felt it added extra importance to the movie by telling us who it was about and what events it tried to convey but that's about it. Few lines on the screen that do not match what we saw, do not a historical movie make.

It is watchable, just highly disappointing, having ruined such an amazing potential story. I understand it is difficult to properly convey things so far back in history where records were so vague about a lot of things, however look at how other movies approached it. This simply does not even feel in the right time period. It feels a lot like generic sword fight at your local fair ground. Granted the fighting was not horrible but again, without any other context being done proper, it just becomes a generic sword fight movie.

I didn't have much expectation heading into this, I just generally love watching medieval films and series purely for the gore; I think watching people wage war with spears, battle axes, maces and swords is much more thrilling than gun fights, still love them though.

Straight from the start it reminded me of History's Vikings tv series, if you're a fan of that you might love this as well. I didn't know it's a true story. There wasn't as much character development but I think they didn't have time for that, it focuses more on the story and that was enough to get you invested in the characters by the end. The acting was splendid by the whole cast. A little sad because I have a feeling the movie won't get the recognition it deserves. I think it's better than The Northman in the sense it's paced better and has more story in my opinion, cinematography might not be as great but still pretty good. The fights were amazing and bloody but I thought some gory scenes weren't shown to us, we just get to see the aftermath especially in the first half. There was a lot at stake and I love how you never really know who's gonna make it especially in the third act.

In the end I love it and remembering these are true events really made the emotional end to it even more heartfelt. Fun watch on the big screens if you're a fan of watching medieval knights bang steel slice through skulls like piñatas. Movies based in the dark era aren't always to everyone's taste but I hope this doesn't go under the radar and people get to enjoy it.

Well I never heard of this Czech warlord. Ben Foster did a good job portraying him. The production of this movie is good, with some well directed battle scenes, good acting from the entire cast, and a normally interesting story. The problem I had with the movie is how confusing it gets sometimes. I really tried to concentrate but it's just not an easy told story. If you're into medieval movies though it's certainly worth a watch. The costumes and the sceneries are very good, the battles gruesome but excellently filmed so you can't really go wrong with Medieval. Too bad the story was a bit confusing.

If you like films about the Middle Ages, then this one is worth the watch. Yes, it is much like other films in this genre (blood and guts and a little bit of a love story), but the director did a great job with angles and sequence and speed. Being based on true events, the storyline in Medieval is unique, as well. Ben Foster leads the film well, and the supporting cast, especially Sophie Lowe and Michael Caine do a nice job. It's not a movie that I will watch over and over again, but it was well worth the watch in the theater, and I'm sure I will watch it at least one more time when it hits the digital market.