Druids

Rating:
Summary: Bad Haircuts
Review: Steve Reeves made movies like this 40 years ago. While Reeves was no actor there would always be a great scene where he'd take one bad guy and hurl him into a group of bad guys. Christopher Lambert, who I really like, can't do this nor can he do much with this sorry film.
For all the raves of other reviewers, this is a poorly made film. Production values are shoddy, the battle scenes are so confusing that who wins is always a surprise. The script is badly written. In one scene a huge blacksmith at work inside Julius Caesar's tent (!?!) offers Caesar a freshly made, still smoking sword and announces he's discovered the "secret of the Gallic sword." Caesar nonchalantly breaks the wonder weapon in half. Where did this scene come from? What does it mean? The subject was never forshadowed earlier and it never comes up again in the rest of the movie. Max Von Sydow's character, the "Arch Druid" babbles such innane New-Age drivel that even Lambert's character responds by saying he can't understand what the old man is talking about. Klaus Maria Brandauer speaks his lines with such a lack of animation that he appears to be heavily medicated. Every time it pans across the ranks of the Roman Legions the extras can't resist looking directly at the camera. Lambert's fellow Gauls all live in neat, clean towns that appear to have been set up for the weekend. The guy Gauls are all refugees from Spinal Tap and their characterizations of Gallic leaders never go beyond the drunken, juvenile behavior you'd expect from a heavy metal band.
It would be OK to watch this movie while folding laundry but I certainly would caution people not to actually buy it themselves.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: This movie is about the Guals fighting with the Romans. It is choppy and random and the scene shifts do not seem to make much sense. The movie transitions from loud screaming to whispering alot so you can not just leave the volume at one level. The story could have been interesting had it been told better.
The acting left a lot to be desired. Except for the "arch-druid," non of the people in leadership roles realy gave off an air of authority.
This is a story of a man who was destined to keep Gaul from the Romans only he fails. So technically he was not even destined. This movie tries really hard to be BraveHeart but comes up way short. If you realy have nothing better to do with a couple of hours, and trust me you have something better to do, watch this movie.

Rating:
Summary: No love for "Druids"?!?
Review: Maybe it's because I love crappy cinema but I was entertained by this movie. Yes, the acting was blah, the script terrible and the casting suspect. Sure, a German-accented Ceaser is ridiculous but, when I purchased this movie, I didn't expect anything than what I got. Honestly, how can a movie called "Druids" with Christopher "Beowulf" Lambert (I liked Beowulf, too- and yes, it sucked) on the cover and the goofy screenshot of him on the back with his arms stretched out like Jesus be anything BUT cheesy?!? I knew buying it it was going to be horrible. And I wasn't disappointed.

It does seem to be historically accurate which is a rarity. The customers and many props were actually rather good. The music choice was odd but it worked, at times. And the woman who played Vortex's queen is a babe. Throw in a few gratuitous female nude shots and you have a classic!

Rating:
Summary: At least I learned...
Review: When I first saw this advertised, I thought GREAT! I knew the book Druids by Morgan Llywelyn was a fantasized retelling of Vergingetorix's life, but I loved it all the same. I was so happy someone had apparently made a movie from it and couldn't wait to see it. Well, either I was wrong about the connection, or Ms. Llywelyn refused to take any responsibility for this thing.

If the book was a fantasy, this film was a travesty! I honestly couldn't believe how horribly done it was.

First of all Lambert playing both the "young" and the "grown up" 'Rix was ludicrous as, when he "grew up" he looked the literally same. The camera angles too made me laugh right out loud. 'Rix was, by all accounts, a large man and Lambert, even standing on a table, looked like a midget.

Well others have raked over the endless laughable aspects of this waste of time already. To echo another reviewer though, this so called epic was an insult to a very courageous and legendary man. Its makers better hope Ainvar was wrong about people coming back or someone is sure to pay for this big time! At least I learned how to pronounce Vercingetorix though.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: Christopher Lambert plays Vercingetorix, a Gallic chieftain whose initial alliance with the Romans ends after the Romans cowardly attack an old family friend and assassinate him.

What follows is a beautifully filmed epic detailing the battles of Vercingetorix as he fights to liberate Gaul from the Romans.

Despite some historical inaccuracies, there was a lot to love about this film. The beautiful costumes, scenery and epic battles show a great attention to detail and a love of the Celtic world and tradition.

If I had any criticism at all for this movie, it would be that I felt a certain lack of empathy for Vercingetorix as a character. Lambert's acting was too stiff and the subject matter too broad to actually connect with this character. Perhaps a more dynamic actor could've brought this character more to life.

Overall, though, an outstanding movie, worth seeing for the cinematography and costumes alone.

Rating:
Summary: Reminded me of an Asterix comic - so it worked.
Review: Druids is a victim of poor marketing and bad translation.

While the story is a good one, the title has no bearing on it, save for a weak sub-plot.

Released in France with the title, Vercingetorix, I assume the US distributor had to create another title as most people here other than fans of French comic Asterix the Gaul, and European historians have no idea who the great Gallic leader was. That and "Vercingetorix" doesn't quite roll off the tongue, does it?

I'll agree the scenes with the Druids were incongruous to the rest of the film, and as far as I can tell, Vercingetorix WAS NOT a druid, as is depicted in some reviews of the film. Sometimes I wonder if reviewers even watch the movies they talk about.

The French version of this film must have been better and I'm sure, explained who the characters were more carefully.

All this said, I'm a huge fan of Asterix AND Gallic/Roman history, so I was able to overlook the films flaws and enjoy it for what it was. The costumes and scenery, I felt were superbly constructed, but left me with one big thought - either the creaters of Asterix had their history down right, or Vercingetorix's army's look was lifted straight from the comic.

I guess I would recommend rental first, before you buy, just to make sure you know what you're getting.

Rating:
Summary: The worst waste of celluloid since the D&D movie...
Review: I bought this movie on the assumption that its starring Christopher Lambert and Max Von Sydow and its props ("The most exciting historical drama since Braveheart!") would guarantee a good solid two hours of fine entertainment. Just goes to show how wrong a person can be.

Admittedly, I didn't watch the entire film...I got absolutely disgusted with it during the fight scene between Lambert and some woman, maybe twenty minutes into the film, and threw the thing into the garbage...but what I saw wasn't promising. EXTREMELY bad acting, worse than the worst acting I've ever seen, dialog so hokey and stilted it doesn't even sound like they phoned it in but rather sent it via Morse code, cut scenes that have absolutely no bearing on anything that's going on in the film, bad filmography (looks like it was shot entirely in Super 8 by an amatuer filmmaker on a thousand dollar budget), no pacing, characters you couldn't care less about, EXTREMELY bad editting...the list goes on. In fact, it looks as though they wasted their entire budget on the first 30 seconds, filming an outer space shot of a comet passing by the Earth, and had no money left to do a decent job on the rest of the film.

If you want to waste fifteen bucks like I did buying this film, go ahead, just know that you'd get more pleasure out of running your money through a paper shredder and burning it.

Rating:
Summary: Joke film probably
Review: I don't know how you could make a worse film. Ok starts out with characters that we could care less about, the boy we can already tell is the "hero".

The story moves you into his older years, where he trains with this chick. What? What is his name first of all, who is teaching him, what is their relationship, and who is this chick? I am so confused, and could care less. The only fight scene that is fine is between him and the chick, but it is still boring. Ok so we meet up with ceaser, however they don't even tell you it is ceaser, and ceaser even helps vertengenerix out. Let me tell you something though, I learned the guy's name at the END of the movie, when the aftermath was talking.

Ok as for characters, there are no emotions, no good acting, and no feelings whatsoever. I could care less about every character.

Battles? One, the beggining between chick and him. The big battle? AWESOME! Joking, the camera shows them run up, then it starts showing dead bodies. We see, mabye 2 guys get killed. Let's see some battles please, there are no battles. Basically they show dead bodies. There was one battle earlier, but nudity was the only thing that could save film, even then, it served no purpose.

Wanna know what I think? This did not go to theatres because it blows. Also, noone on the box says, "Spectacular, raves the new york times or wahtever." It doesn't say anything like that, because they couldn't find one person to say something decent about it.

Rating:
Summary: The Movie That Should've Never Been
Review: I came, I saw, and I couldn't believe my eyes! Horrible rendition of the life and death of Vercingetorix, chief of the Gauls who fought Julius Caesar and was defeated at Alesia in 50 B.C. A heroic figure of great courage and dignity whose historical persona should have never been dragged into this amateurish attempt of a movie!

Although much of the subject is taken directly from Caear's De Bello Gallico, the script and acting is pathetic. Klaus Maria Brandauer is a good solid actor, but his casting as Caesar was a poor choice; it's hard to imagine him as one of the greatest Roman leaders with his heavy German accent. Althouh Max Von Sydow is also a solid actor, he doesn't really get to shine much in this movie; as a matter of fact, besides the obvious cues that he's a druid, no one would guess it by hearing the dialogue. Contrary to the movie's title, the movie has very little to do with druids anyway. The most horrible casting is Christopher Lambert as Vercingetorix. Lambert's acting hardly reflects a 20-year old Gaul nobleman who's fiece charismatic appeal and valor was able to unite all of the tribes of Gaul into one force against their Roman invaders: something that no other chieftain had ever been able to achieve in the history of the Gauls (or Celts for that matter.)

The film location and settings were equally bad in that it was filmed in Canada (Probably because the French government was too embarassed to be associated in any way with this pitiful film.) This hardly matches the plains, oak forests, and low plateaus of central France. Although the final scene of the battle of Alesia does a good job of showing how the Roman legions prepared fortifications with pallisades, trenches, and spikes against cavalry, the film failed to show how vast of a siege this really was. There were over 250,000 Gauls fighting 60,000 Roman legionaires! The Romans had built over 25 miles of double pallisades with towers and forts tho surround and invest the city of Alesia. These fortifications descended into valleys and rose on to hills. The hill town of Alesia in the movie looks more like a little match-stick pueblo surrounded by a small army. The film also makes the same mistake as so many other films of that period: stirrups did not exist until the 7th Century A.D. Both Romans and Celts used a Celtic saddle to support themselves on a horse: the front and rear parts of the saddle would curve inward near the thighs at the top to allow the rider to stand firm on the saddle.

The script lacked depth and failed to grasp the Celtic culture or the world view of ancient peoples in general: the dialogue reflects themes that are too modern to the point that one would think Vercingetorix wanted to build a socialist and pluralistic democracy. The soundtrack was equally horrible. A quasi-disco trendy soundtrack hardly sets the mood in a movie about antiquity: imagine how good of a movie Spartacus or Ben-Hur would have been with the Bee-Gees for a title theme and you have "Druids." Apart for history teachers who want to show their students brief details about how the Roman legions built their fortifications, this movie is definitely worth skipping: it's not even worth renting.

Rating:
Summary: Good story - bad directing & writing
Review: The basic story about Vercingétorix & Caesar is a great story and would make a great epic film given the right director & writer. The strengths of this film are the battle scenes and music, hence the second star. The weakness is the directing & writing. The occasional bad acting I attribute to the bad directing. The opening sequences are especially poor and the opening dialogue quite laughable. To me, it is inexcusable for the director to miss the basics like insuring that everyone pronounces "Vercingetorix" the same way in the same scene!

The "avenge my father's death" storyline was appropriate but could have been handled better. The "mystical Druid" storyline was poorly handled and should have been left out altogether. On the positive side, I was impressed with the large number of extras used...definately a plus in recreating the siege of Alesia.

As fans of Epic films (Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Gladiator, 13th Warrior), my wife & I were extremely disappointed in this film.