Medieval

As feuding brothers battle for control of the throne, the daring and righteous mercenary leader Jan Zizka embarks on a mission to kidnap Lady Katherine, the fiancee of a powerful lord. As fate would have it, amongst the bodies and the blood, with the course of history hanging in the balance, the two fall in love..

Based on the “true” story of Jan Zizka, the Bohemian warrior and the saint-like iconoclast from the 1400s of what is now the modern day Czech Republic, Medieval was obviously aiming to be like Braveheart, or the TV show Vikings, one of those splattery spectacles of violence and sex that you can freely enjoy because it’s history, it’s educational, making you very much like a kind of scholar as you watch from your couch, a person who is distinguished and educated and eating Cheetos. This is boobs and bloodshed for the refined palette, y’see…

Unfortunately, Medieval lacks the fun and adventure, not to mention the quality writing, that those other examples have in spades.

And before you object, you should understand, I’m saying this as somewhat of an expert scholar of this very kind myself, an academic of some renown, in fact, holding a PhD even, in both the heaving of bosoms in bodices, as well as the battering of shield walls in muddy fields. I love a good “bad ass group of medieval adventurers who all specialize in different kinds of ass kicking—bow guy, spear guy, big man, sword guy, knife thrower guy—riding around, heroes for hire, laughing heartily o’er sloshing flagons of ale, between the crushing of their enemies and then the driving of those enemies before them, all to the lamentations of the enemies’ women, all until their final stand against impossible odds, where they nod stoically to each other one last time, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers” type of story, but here…?

Everything is shades of gray metal and wet leather, either too bogged down with slow motion, or the camera is too busy swooping around, and all of it is over-saturated as if I was watching the film on the wrong Color Setting on my TV.

But i digress…

This probably makes it sound like Medieval is a bad film, but it’s not… it’s worse, it’s forgettable. It’s all the dryness of a poorly taught history class with none of the fun, and the worst part is, the story is filled with double-crosses and vendettas, political intrigue and battles, so it shouldn’t be so ponderous and dull, but… it is. I love Ben Foster too, he’s great. I was really rooting for him here, but… nope. Plus, there’s so much God talk, and obviously it was the time for it, that’s what they did back then, and admittedly, the attempt to reunite the Catholic Church is the thing that the whole story spins out of, but still… ugh, let this cup pass from me, please, y’know?

Medieval is that sadly all too typical thing that comes with being a moviehead, that thing where you see that a movie is for rent, and you’re like “oh yeah. I was interested in that. I didn’t know it came out. Why didn’t I hear anything about it?”

Then you watch it and go, “Oh… That’s why.”