Adormidera

The Good - This was a very ambitious project, so I admire the executive producers for taking the risk and investing in such a production. Any experienced filmmaker will tell you that the hardest part of this business is always related to funding. Which brings me to my next positive point, the setting. The visuals of this film are actually very good, the way each set is designed and the lighting used really enhance the feel of this medieval story, so well done to the set designer and the director of photography. And last but certainly not least I applaud the main actor (Andrei Claude) for his outstanding performance as Tristan of Leon. Quoting from a recent review on The Sunday Times "Claude has good screen presence and portrays well the noble hero that has seen his sense of idealism dissipating before his eyes by the callousness of the world around him." I should add that this is also a credit to the casting director who must have had a clear vision of what this character had to represent.

The Bad - I don't like being negative but I have to be honest. The story wasn't well structured and many areas remain unexplained. Some of the acting was rather poor, and I found this a bit distracting.

The Outcome - I still enjoyed watching this film and I recommend it. Yes it could have been much better, but so could World War Z (which cost $190,000,000) and millions of people watched it anyway.

There have been movies with limited budget which are pleasantly enjoyable, unfortunately Adormidera is not one of them. It has issues on the most fundamental aspects such as script, camera work and even sound mixing till the point that it's hard to invest on the movie at all. This resembles more of some friends making video in Renaissance fair than actual feature length movie.

Story follows five soldiers who survive the war. They are in their way home when they meet with several dubious characters who involve them in a power struggle. There is lack of clarity on the war mentioned, the main character uses heavy monologues, but ultimately doesn't explain much. The monologues are not only needlessly long and aplenty, they also create synchronization errors for most of the sound effects.

The sound is oddly out of tune from its visual. Some of the lines feel bizarre, but the worst is the sound effect of the surroundings. There are far too many times when the footstep, motion or even background noise feel simply muted or in much lower volume. Sadly, graphic doesn't fare much better with shaky and jittery cam.

Some of the scenes are shot very closely to the characters' faces, right zoomed in their foreheads or jaws. This starts off annoying and it becomes just silly as important sequences show only half face of the characters. The contrast between light and darkness is poor, creating indiscernible scenes as the story goes into nighttime. Also, the persistent problem of rumbling camera exists, but the movie takes it further as it accidentally shoots random objects or background.

Acting is subpar, most of the characters are overly zealous or simply uncomfortable. Maybe the lead role Andrei Claude is decent here, but as random extras interact with high pitch tone or wooden expression it's hard to take the plot seriously. Story is a vague endeavor, using war torn theme and damsel-in-distress female. It doesn't culminate well as the climatic fights are merely random brawls.

If the movie had some sort of solid production, it could have been a decent past time, but as it stands with multitude of basic flaws, Adormidera is nearly unbearable.

Although visually I feel this movie does live up to its expectations the script does not seem to match up as well. The plot itself is fine, and towards the end it draws you in much more. The dialogue, the development of secondary characters and the transition between scenes could have been much better though.

It was interesting to see how despite the weakness in the script and lack of direction the lead actor still plays out his role as Tristan very well, a character which seems to prevail throughout the entire movie. The stereotypical tall, dark and handsome hero possesses a powerful screen presence and delivers a very charismatic and enjoyable performance.

The battle scene towards the end is also quite gripping, and the action gets even better in the one-on-one segments. Nothing too graphic, which justifies the PG rating, but it keeps you on edge until the the very end.

Maybe this movie doesn't quite meet everyone's expectations, however I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. It's a simple story but yet I found it quite captivating. It's evident in some scenes that the budget wasn't in the millions, whilst in others it looked just like a Hollywood epic. The costumes looked great, most of the sets looked very authentic, the music is lovely and I enjoyed the action sequences. Very interesting to see tenor Joseph Calleja in a featured role, which I felt was played out well. The star of this show however, was rightfully the leading actor who hails from Malta, Andrei Claude. He delivers a very strong performance and a powerful screen presence.

I find it fascinating how a strong leading actor, and yes in this case also very handsome can turn around a weak script. I only just watched this movie which is also titled Avenging the throne. The story itself is quite straight forward and to be totally honest is rather intriguing all the way to the end, however amongst other areas the script definitely falls short when it comes to details and linking all the scenes together. I would normally switch to something else if a movie doesn't grab my attention within the first ten minutes. Well in spite of the script's shortcomings and a low production value I carried on watching this one. I would have to give all the credit to the actor playing the role of Tristan for this though.