I want to begin with agreeing and applauding placid-3's review. The historical inaccuracies, in my opinion, undermine the story's convictions. Reading a King James bible before it's creation, coupled with all the other miracles, would be less believable then Patrick obtaining a set of magical scrolls containing gold-glowing scripts of the gospels.
The next very bothersome inaccuracy is the blatant antagonizing view of the Druids at the time. In the beginning scenes during the Samhain festival the High Priest is heard praying to the "powers of darkness" as though he were praying to the Devil.
In truth, the "Gods of Darkness" are not evil aspects of their pantheon, but instead simply the deity of Autumn and Winter as a personification mirroring these seasons. The Druids were praying to a God closely related in aspect to Santa Claus, whom, before being indoctrinated into the Church as Saint Nicholas, was in fact, the Germanic/Pagan icon known as the Holly King.
Other issues were the depictions of animal sacrifice as somehow immoral. When, even in the Bible, Abel sacrifices his favored flock in praise of God. Animal offerings were common before Christ, and though lacking the "ceremony", existed even after Him.
Next is Human sacrifice depicted as frequently occurring, when this is confused with symbolic sacrifice. Had you known nothing of Catholicism, hearing of rituals where the flesh and blood of a man were imbibed, you would believe this to be atrocious cannibalism. In reality priests underwent a symbolic death personifying the daylight sun's departure. Bones discovered at holy sites were confused with human sacrifice simply by placement; the same could be concluded with this reasoning on bones in church yards.
Slavery now is an immense moral taboo, but back in that time was incredibly common and not as evil as the 19th century America's. Patrick being of Roman patronage would have had quite a few slaves, though they would be more conscript/peon then what we have come to consider slaves today. In reality, slaves of the time were any of the lower class that were indentured to a land owner and was provided protection, shelter, and food for labor. Without this in the harshness of the time period a person would surely perish; this should not be confused with the inhumane treatment and subjugation of slaves in later centuries.
As a fantasy or legend, the story is good, but just as the church is vilified so too are the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland; just as a minority of Christians were bad and the majority, like Patrick, were good, the Druids should have been given the same treatment. It is debatable that Patrick's actions caused the civilization of Ireland to lose it's strength against invaders and subsequently open the door to centuries of new oppression, war and misery at the hands of outsiders.
As for all the magical delights, and scenery this movie is awesome. I'm always happy to see the fantasy genre grow and enthralled by it's connection to the Emerald Isles.
The historical truths of Patrick have been embellished like any Legend, but in turn the antagonists have as been exaggerated as well. It would have been nice to have seen two sides of the coin in regards to the Druids, and possibly less emphasis on them being barbarous and evil. They invented the first four walled room you know.
