"Brotherhood of the Wolf" has all the ingredients of a mediocre Hollywood action film. Don't get me wrong, my favorite movies tend to be American, but Hollywood also produces many cliché action flicks lacking in originality, but champion in cheesiness. With this film, one can see the French have masterfully picked up on it.
Let me list examples showing how "Brotherhood of the Wolf" looks like a typical Hollywood movie :
-A narrator presents the movie to make it look more intellectual than it really is,
-Fight scenes in the rain with slow motion moments, typically with one dude kicking many people's ass all at once using eastern martial arts (in 18th century France),
-Cool American-Indian thrown in, whose medicine and knowledge is somehow better than that of a developed country, cause he's so close to nature and all..,
-Very politically correct denunciation of racism and ignorance (but granted, typical French movies also do that a lot),
-References to real historical facts in order to flatter the more cultured audience's intelligence,
-Female characters who other than their hotness are absolutely useless,
-Lack of character development (does anyone actually care for the main characters?),
-Surreal dream-sequence added to make the movie seem mystical,
-Uninteresting romance seemingly thrown in the movie for the Hell of it,
-Scene where the main character takes his revenge in a hate-fueled bloodbath,
-White guy goes all Rambo on the bad guys, dressing like an American-Indian in the process because he surely learned how to be a commando when he fought with Indians in North America,
-Unrealistic conspiracy theory revealed like it's something awesome,
-Final face-off fight during which the antagonist explains his actions,
-Many anachronisms,
-Cheesy ending which tries desperately to be tragic.
I surely forgot some moments, but these are examples which made me smirk or sigh.
"Brotherhood of the Wolf" stays a relatively entertaining movie, although sometimes I wished it could just cut to the chase, so I believe it at least deserves an average 5/10. But contrary to what many people have said, it most certainly does not look like a French movie. I believe many non-French people rated the movie highly because in truth it looks American, yet it's French so it felt "exotic" and they were perhaps pleasantly surprised. But if this movie were American, it wouldn't have been praised so much in my most humble opinion.
If you want to see a typical French movie, don't watch this one. If you like Hollywood action movies which aren't particularly original, you might like "Brotherhood of the Wolf" and then feel good about yourself for having watched a foreign film.
Let me list examples showing how "Brotherhood of the Wolf" looks like a typical Hollywood movie :
-A narrator presents the movie to make it look more intellectual than it really is,
-Fight scenes in the rain with slow motion moments, typically with one dude kicking many people's ass all at once using eastern martial arts (in 18th century France),
-Cool American-Indian thrown in, whose medicine and knowledge is somehow better than that of a developed country, cause he's so close to nature and all..,
-Very politically correct denunciation of racism and ignorance (but granted, typical French movies also do that a lot),
-References to real historical facts in order to flatter the more cultured audience's intelligence,
-Female characters who other than their hotness are absolutely useless,
-Lack of character development (does anyone actually care for the main characters?),
-Surreal dream-sequence added to make the movie seem mystical,
-Uninteresting romance seemingly thrown in the movie for the Hell of it,
-Scene where the main character takes his revenge in a hate-fueled bloodbath,
-White guy goes all Rambo on the bad guys, dressing like an American-Indian in the process because he surely learned how to be a commando when he fought with Indians in North America,
-Unrealistic conspiracy theory revealed like it's something awesome,
-Final face-off fight during which the antagonist explains his actions,
-Many anachronisms,
-Cheesy ending which tries desperately to be tragic.
I surely forgot some moments, but these are examples which made me smirk or sigh.
"Brotherhood of the Wolf" stays a relatively entertaining movie, although sometimes I wished it could just cut to the chase, so I believe it at least deserves an average 5/10. But contrary to what many people have said, it most certainly does not look like a French movie. I believe many non-French people rated the movie highly because in truth it looks American, yet it's French so it felt "exotic" and they were perhaps pleasantly surprised. But if this movie were American, it wouldn't have been praised so much in my most humble opinion.
If you want to see a typical French movie, don't watch this one. If you like Hollywood action movies which aren't particularly original, you might like "Brotherhood of the Wolf" and then feel good about yourself for having watched a foreign film.