Reviews

You know, Randall Wallace wound up on my list of "sucky dudes" when he mangled the face of history in "Braveheart". I find it tragically ironic that oodles of people have now criticized Wallace for mangling a fictional work. God forbid he should screw with the plot of a film that's been, in one form or another, done about five times. *sigh* Filmgoers of the world, you never cease to amaze me...

Anyway, I thought this film was very well-done. I know very little about the actual history of the setting, but at least it's clear to all involved that this film was based on a work of _fiction_ by Dumas. The characters are archetypes, but they are, IMO, appropriate. Once again, I find it amazing that people would complain about the depth (or lack thereof) of the characters in tMitIM. This is the guy who made "Braveheart", people. Greatly exaggerated characters, anyone? Louis is pretty much unredeemably evil. D'Artagnan is endlessly loyal and hopeful. Phillipe is _all_ good. This is high adventure, and it was, IMO, well done.

My roommate told me that this was "the funniest movie ever". I felt that it had some extremely funny moments that popped up in a sea of mediocre half-jokes. The things I found funny about the movie are the same types of things I find funny about South Park -- unexpected humor.

"Got milk?"

Plus, I'm one of the rare people that think that Jenny McCarthy is attractive and generally humorous. So -- I didn't mind seeing her at random points throughout the film.

I enjoyed the film, but can easily see how others might not feel as I did. When I saw the preview, I was immediately interested in the movie -- despite the fact that the preview I saw revealed nothing about the film itself. The most I ever get to learn or hear about Wales is through reading Hollinshed's histories of the middle ages. It was interesting to see a film actually set in a modern Welsh town.

Besides, it was f'ing hilarious.

In case the point hasn't been hammered home hard enough, this movie sucks. A lot. I'm the kind of guy who, by default, tends to see the good things in movies. This film was so hideously bad that I felt ashamed for even watching it. Urgh!

I liked this movie. I found it thoroughly enjoyable. It wasn't perfect, but I thought it was very exciting and intense. It deviates significantly from the book ("Eaters of the Dead"), but I still enjoyed it more than any other medieval combat-oriented movie I've seen in a long time.

I will start with the one area of Braveheart that I will give praise to: the battle scenes. The battle scenes were, for the most part, very accurate and appropriately brutal. While I did think it was "cool" to see William Wallace wielding a military pick at one point in the film, it seemed pretty nonsensical. It seems as if someone on the set said, "You know what would be really COOL? We could have Wallace smash in some guy's head with a big HAMMER! Yeah, YEAH!"

As for the rest of this film -- let me simply say that I probably would have found it to be wonderful if it was about a man named Elphed Beeblebrox and his life-quest to gain freedom for his nation, Goonia, from the evil imperial Shanta and King Twazel II.

However, as this movie is simply an exercise in making history as two-dimensional and misrepresentative as possible, I have to give a big obscene gesture out to everyone involved in the more important aspects of making this film. I'm sure I don't need to go into details about this -- if you actually cared, you'd probably go pick up a book to read about the history of this period. Let me just set three things straight: both England and Scotland were horrible "sports" during this entire protracted war, Edward I died about ten years after Wallace was executed (Ed continued to pound Scotland throughout this entire time),

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Miller's Crossing is a movie that I first viewed early in High School. At the time, I was an incompetent movie-watcher. I didn't pay much attention to the film and, as a result didn't "get" much of it. When I watched it again, years later, the movie really seemed to come to life. Even though I've now watched this film well over a dozen times, I still catch new details with each additional viewing. For instance, how many people have noticed the creaking trees from Miller's Crossing in the last scene with Tom and Bernie outside of Tom's apartment? At first I simply thought it was the floorboards creaking. If you watch and listen carefully, you'll notice that it's not in sync with Tom or Bernie walking -- or even moving. How many people have noticed the silver ring on Tom's right hand? It's an Irish wedding band, turned to signify that his heart belongs to another. To whom does it belong? Verna? Leo?

Anyway, as almost everyone here has said, this is a great film with a lot of great performances and cameos. I know I'll never forget such memorable characters as Tom, Bernie, Verna, Leo, The Dane, Jonny, Tic-Tac, Frankie, Terry, Mink, Drop Johnson, and Tad.

This film is horrible. Bad acting, bad writing, bad music. It's just horrible. Not only is it incredibly misrepresentative of role-playing games, but the key elements of the film are poorly executed. May the God I don't believe in have mercy on the souls of the miserable wretches who conceived and gave birth to this abomination.