Reviews

Great content from T Rowsell as usual.

His documentaries are especially good if you want to teach children about history without subjecting them to the PC slant that most doco makers are forced to add to their films. Tom doesnt have to worry about who has funded his project so his content remains honest. A rare thing indeed these days.

Tom always sticks to objective data and has a calm, level presenting style. His channel focuses on European pre xtian history which is what we want to learn about. So bored of the mainstream academics' obsession with Egypt etc etc. They need to focus more on our own people. Id love to see Tom get the funding he deserves so he can get better camera equipment. Doing it himself is the only area his films fall behind the mainstream competition. Great film.

I was really looking forward to this as it has some great actors that I've liked in previous shows and the rangers sound like an interesting topic. However, I couldnt even watch the first episode all the way through. The characters are all very 2 dimensional, the camera work judders and jerks around from one scene to the next and is very annoying. It's almost like the cameramen had only ever worked on commercials before or something? The script seems to have been written by a 2 yr old. The characters just dont react to each other like human beings, whoever wrote this has possibly never listened actual people speak before? It is difficult to focus on what they are saying because the background noise like cars going past and cheesy music is too loud....... Did they get a bunch of underwear models to act and students to write the script and direct it??? I will try to watch it one more time because i like some of the actors but I'm so disappointed.

To the writers credit they did show the Franks forcing Frisian conversion to xtianity with the sword including forced baptisms. They went all PC by showing 'saint' Boniface as quite innocent whilst his teacher did all the bad things like forced conversion and chopping down Thenors Tree. History records Boniface as the slime guilty of these crimes. I guess the filmmakers didn't want to offend a 'saint'?

Redbad is famous for his resistance to forced conversion to xtianity and the occupation of his peoples lands by the Franks. He took over from his father who was sympathetic to xtianity. Redbad could not live with his fathers weakness. In the film his father was a committed Odinist and Redbad was a character with sympathies towards xtianity. They even had him marrying a xtian!! I guess the writers didn't want the hero being anti xtian?

When learning that none of his ancestors would be in heaven Redbad famously said "I'd rather spend eternity in hell with my ancestors than in heathen with my enemies". In the film they had him saying "it's not what you believe, it's what you do with it" in sympathy for christianity!!!!!!! Whilst the real Redbad wasn't all good or even as loved by his people as portrayed in this film they have taken some serious liberties with history here!

From the outset the 'pagans' were talking about mass sacrificing their young women because they had a couple bad years growing crops and a flood. There is no record of this? Where did they get this idea from? I suspect they just wanted to make the 'pagans' look bad. Historical sources attest that prisoners of war and criminals were the normal sacrifice to the gods when humans were killed. They were given a choice to die of their own free will with some honour or die a horrible death. A lot of them would chose to face their death willingly so that they had a chance of a good afterlife and being buried with honour. In the account of Ibn Fadlan (a traveler who observed the Rus) it is mentioned that a female thrall sacrificed herself when her master died. This is also backed up by the evidence in the Oseberg ship burial. Adam of Bremen provides an account of men and women willingly sacrificing themselves at Uppsala in Sweden but this is a second hand account and it's written by a xtian. However, there are no historical accounts of Germanic peoples 'mass' sacrificing their young women, born of freemen as depicted in this film.

During this film there were at least 5 or 6 battle scenes. They portrayed every warrior as owning a sword and some had an axe as well. I don't recall seeing a single spear in the whole film!!

At one stage in the film Redbad was banished from his tribe. He washed up on a shore and was taken in by another tribe as a thrall. Being upset regarding his banishment he didn't speak to the people that had taken him in or even tell them his name. He just kind of walked around and did manual tasks for them. Anyways after one battle where another tribe attacked them Redbad was made a freeman and the kings daughter asked him to marry her lol (obviously an 8th century feminist!) . So, he went from unknown thrall who refused to speak to a prince after ten minutes of sword fighting on the beach!

Throughout the film I noticed beautiful waif like models playing the female roles in the film (no problem with that). However, they were all fighting in the battle scenes just as much as the men! I doubt some of these women could lift a sword let alone swing it for an hour of fighting, killing several stronger, bigger men in the process. One scene had a line of women shooting the Franks with large bows. I'd guess the bows had 70Lb draw on them but those waif like models kept firing away for the duration of the battle! They must be stronger than they look. Whilst women certainly learned and were able to defend themselves there is no evidence that they fought in battles to this degree. In all the archeological digs that have investigated battlefields 99.9999% of the bodies were men. No amount of feminism can argue with that.

The film was mildly entertaining, but for anyone with even a hint of historical knowledge this film will be difficult to watch!

This goes to show how out of touch Hollywood truly is. That they think people would be interested in this snowflake left wing / liberal bia&ch, one of the most hated characters on the good wife tells us all we need to know about the people running TV film industry.

Watched the first episode as I couldn't believe they made this. It was as expected pretty lame

This film doesn't even come close to chocolate the first film this girl was in.

It's childish, unrealistic, poor story, amateur camera work and so cheesy I sat there wondering if I was going to make it until the end. When I watched Chocolate her first film I was gripped all the way through.

The fight scenes seem so unreal. It's more like fancy dance / acrobatics. The strikes seem weak and feeble yet the bad guys still fall over. That's the problem with a lot of Asian martial arts films. Whilst you can't help but admire their skill and acrobatics you always think to yourself just one solid punch and that skinny little / bony wimp will be on his back........ In this respect western martial arts films are better as when the guy hits someone you believe they are going to be knocked out! Never mind maybe her next film will be better. She has the skills etc or maybe chocolate was just a very good story.

If you want plot outline read IMDb synopsis - these are just my thoughts after watching the film.

Chistpher judge must be desperate for money......

The hobbits were a mixture of children and dwarfs! They mostly didn't speak English or very poor English so the film makers dubbed their lines over whatever they had said lol.

I just can't believe this film was made. There were some flying crocodiles with men riding them like horses that made me laugh. It was the kind of special effects the geekier amongst us put to amateur film when we were teenagers.

I think the script was written by someone who's first language was not English lol. That together with bad dubbing and a pathetic story make this almost impossible to watch.

I suspect this was made on the cheap as a con to dupe people in DVD rental shops into renting it on the strength by association because The Hobbit an unexpected journey has been released at the same time.

Warning do not pay money for this! I downloaded it but even though it was free i couldn't sit through the whole film. awful.

Firstly I would say don't listen to the bias haters who have cast there votes giving this a low score without even watching it.........

The film was superbly shot. There were some very nice scenes and the transition / editing between scenes was very fluid. The action scenes were much better than all the other twilight films with heads being ripped off and a couple of half decent scraps.

Whilst the dialogue was a bit lacking in this film they made up by presenting a whole host of different characters, there was always something on screen to keep us interested. The character development was also a bit lacking. I would say this film was entertaining but no more. I gave it a 10 to make up for all the haters casting silly votes like 1! There's no need for me to describe the film IMDb does that on the title page. I'm just going to say you will like watching it but don't expect to be intellectually challenged!! It's a popcorn & put your hand down your girlfriends skirt kind of film......

I've given this a six purely for having the nerve to make such a film!! This film is OK to watch when you have a hangover and want to gawk at Rhona mitras cleavage that's about it.......

I'm not going to write a review as such because its hard to write about something so ridiculous lol Instead I will list the following;-

Black vikings wearing bifocals. smoking tobacco before tobacco was brought to Europe! bronze age vikings living in huge castles built of stone hahahaha. I laughed all the way through this film..... It's seems the director thought gay club music was appropriate for a "period" movie.......

I especially liked Rhona mitra wearing lingerie!! This is the earliest film I've seen Rhona mitra in and my god she is hot. It was worth sitting through just to see her :-) I was particularly amorous towards my girlfriend after watching this, she wondered what got into me. Do not tell her it was Rhona Mitra please.......

There's a lot of machined metal around for bronze age vikings....... WTF! a zipped up plastic bag to put the body into the furnace? I didn't know zips were invented back then hahaha. To top it all off was the loud speaker and PA system hahahah!!! I didn't realise they had night vision telescopes back then..... Apparently back flips and front flips are a sound sword fighting battle technique..... Overall the action scenes were laughable. The sword fighting was a joke.

This film falls into the category of its so bad its good (well almost good) at the least it was entertaining.

I was compelled to write a review after seeing some negative reviews. A lot of the other reviewers were expecting some kind of Italian horror like argento etc. When they didn't get what they expected they wrote a bad review.

I cant stand those geeky Italian horrors from film makers like argento so my views are not tainted by it! just because the directer is Italian doesn't mean its going to be similar to those films dur.

This film was nicely filmed in beautiful locations with some smooth editing and quality camera work. I was interested from start to finish in what was happening. For those reviewers who said the film was mixed up obviously didn't get what it was all about. I wont ruin it by telling you.

There was some gruesome imaginative torture porn for those of that are into that sort of thing but what kept me interested was the creepy atmosphere and how invested i was in the characters struggle from the start of the film right through to the end.

In summary really not bad for a lower budget film, a directer who knows how to capture the moment and not give us enough time to question what just happened before the next drama ensues! This is something Hollywood fails with again and again with every genre so i gave it an 8 / 10

i had to wash my eyes out after watching this, really awful. I admit to being a fan of the cartoon and I've seen every episode but I was looking forward to this film in full knowledge it would not be the same. I have to say as a stand alone film it looked like they were just going through the motions. The dialogue was childish and the story had been squished into such a short space. No time at all had been taken to write a proper story - they just bastardised the original, Goku was a white teenage boy for Christ sake!

they should have written a new story that just paid homage to the original coming up with something interesting but instead they ruined an already well developed story. i think they just made some cheap rubbish to see if they could get all the dragon ball fans to rent it!

hot chick or 2, fights were OK but not as good as the first film except for the fight where Michael Jai White is hand cuffed and fights off 4 or 5 police men showing his agility. there was some character development but not much, clumsy dialogue - not a lot of complete or realistic conversations, mildly entertaining though i wouldn't watch it twice like you can with some classic martial arts films. Some big plot holes like how a teenage boxer became a mix martial arts fighter with only a few weeks training....... hopefully kids out there don't think that's realistic! they all looked a bit young for MMA - kind of boyband MMA haha

the faults aside it was likable and i was entertained!

This film was slow, the fight scenes were boring and unimaginative. The character and plot development was non existent - I found myself not caring about any of the main actors.

The scenes were edited by a 5 year old just loosely strung together with nervous immature cinema photography. Van damme was like a walking meat popsickle - with no character or passion at all. he should retire.

My biggest disappointment was scott adkins. I had such high hopes for him going on previous performances and couldn't believe he was number 2 to van damme but unfortunately he was useless as well. Having unreal skills and personal character doesn't count for much when you choose a lemon of a film like this to be in! where did it all go wrong scott!

I wish i could get the 101 minutes back, not worth the rental or download bandwidth!

bloody! The first sword movie since gladiator where the fight scenes were gory and bloody. The fight scenes were well choreographed. There wasn't much of the close up shaky camera con that recent films have used. the fighting was clearly visible with the camera a distance back from the fights, swords going through flesh (and heads!)

It's good to see a film about Englands ancient history. So much has happened in our past for such a small island but its rarely represented in the movies (certainly not in any kind of positive light).

There wasn't a great deal of character building as we didn't really get to know the people though there was a taste. Basically the films focus was on the siege of Rochester castle. So lots of people trying to climb a wall and hack away at the guys inside! Though the magna carta was mentioned the film didn't really explain how important it was or what it meant to England, its people and one day the world. This could have been done better. Judging by the cinema photography I'd say it was low budget so they didn't do too badly all things considered

I liked the film and will watch it again one day. PS Not really historically correct but the jist of it was on the right track and hey it's entertainment not the history channel......

Action scenes were not as good as the 2nd film. The parts where people spoke were just breaks between action scenes and didn't really add anything to the film!

Rosie / carlys character was flat as a pancake. At least megan fox had screen presence and was likable (and hotter). To be fair to her though the writing was awful so not all her fault.

Le beof what ever his name is was comical in the first 2 films and next to fox was just about worth watching but in this movie he was pointless, had very little dialogue and i found myself not caring what happened to him.

Who ever wrote the screenplay for this was an idiot. whilst i know it was an action film i at least expect the story and characters to be focused on as an important part of the film but it was all about the action scenes which were a little confusing to watch at best.

I gave this a 3 as some effort went into the action scenes even if they could have been better, When i left the cinema i initially thought of this movie as a 1 star!!!!

Well i've seen up to s01e02 and already i can see this is going to be passion filled character driven TV at its best. this is fantasy designed for adults not kids. the story seems complex and has more layers than an onion!

i'm glad its hbo doing this as they have the money to keep up the obvious high production values we've seen so far. hopefully they wont mess it up!

the cast seem perfect for the roles they are playing. sean bean and lena headly have the focus and passion to make this the best TV has to offer if the writers can pull it off. so much potential. already i'm feeling strong empathy for certain characters and my imagination is awash with ideas as to what will happen next.

i haven't described the story - read the IMDb description for that. these are my thoughts after the first couple of episodes.

OK I'm a fan of action films but this was so bad i walked out of the movie. Something i have never done before in 25 years of going to the cinema.

It was mildly entertaining in parts, there was some style to it and it was good to see amber heard in hot pants...... It also made me all warm inside to see cage get shot in the face as he's done such a bad job on this film. thats the good over with.

Normally when i watch a film my imagination sweeps me along with the story even if there are silly plot holes and bad acting etc but it has to be said my imagination was severely tested watching this rubbish. It was so unrealistic in the way it was filmed, the way the characters interacted with each other, the way the characters reacted to things that i just couldn't sit through the whole film.

Amber heard a very attractive skinny girl was able to beat up several stronger guys by punching, elbowing etc I think she would have snapped in 2 if she tripped over the curb let alone got into a fight! She is stunning but totally out of place in this movie.

I guess i would have stayed and watched this to the end and been mildly entertained (and bored at the same time) if it hadn't been 3D and 3D prices. I paid £9.40 + £1 for glasses thats £10.40 to watch a movie!!! This is the 4th so called "3D" movie I have seen at the cinema. I have come to the conclusion that "3D" only works when they add graphics or animation to the screen in some way. During a normal scene without glasses the background is fuzzy and the main characters stick out, with glasses the background clears up a little and the characters or other "3D" objects supposedly stand out from the screen a little. For me this is so hard to notice i really don't know why they bother??? I think this "3D" nonsense is just a big con to get us to pay more to see a film. Why is no one saying anything??? All this press attention telling us about this amazing revolution in the world of cinema. It's just a big con. Avatar was good because of the graphics and animation, from what I've seen they cannot create proper "3D" images of movies and people. thats why the whole "3D" thing was canned back in the 80's...... because it just doesn't work!!! I think we are all crazy spending our money on this sh*t just because the TV adverts tell us to. Are we really a nation of sheep??

OK what can we say about this film. The only one who could act in it was mina suvari whos focus probably held the movie together. Though annalynne mcord held my attention to the screen for just being stunning....... I'll forgive her for poor acting but no one else! I wonder if suvari was rolling her eyes at everyones silly acting. The script seemed to be written by a 15 year old. There was practically no building of characters or plot twists thatweren't expected. On the plusside I was entertained the whole way through the movie. All I will say is I'm glad during an apocalypse some girls still wear lip gloss and push up bra's.... Also the zombie effects, gore and the way they moved was better than 90% of the zombie movies out there, I seems strange they would invest such cool effects for a movie with no script and amateur camera work! Anyway don't expect much and don't take it seriously just sit back and enjoy. With the amazing effects and mina suvari as lead actress you would think they could have done so much more with this, never mind. PS it has nothing to do with the original movie as best as i could tell for those geek fans of romero! Oh and look out for one of the lead actors eating his own eye when he's turned classic :-)

hmmmmmmm, not sure about this one. A good quantity of blood splatter every time a sword strikes and some nice cinema photography, not much else i'm afraid...... The Story is quite frankly just stupid,I can see historians choking on their cup of tea! Some big leaps of faith are needed for the viewer to keep watching without saying what the f*$£"k. My advice is not to think about things as you watch it, maybe drink a few beers first and just enjoy the sword play such as it is. They seemed to put all the effort into blood splatter effects and not so much into choreographing the fight scenes though some scenes were good. I will say the right actors were in place and did there best. The film was entertaining as I was able to switch my brain off for most of the film! Not bad at all for an English film going by recent efforts!

For future ref to film makers hunters on horseback catching up to their prey and loosing them several times is not very realistic, these boys must have been olympic runners or something......

One final point, why were the romans the heroes of the film? it seems there's a lot of Brit bashing going on in films these days. You'd think as England once had an empire spanning half the world, being an island race we have also defended against virtually every nation in Europe trying to invade us in ancient times and modern - some interesting stories there - there should at least be a few modern movies where the Brits are not the villains!!!!!

wow. For those who feared this would be a let down without the original lead actor please put such thoughts aside. This prequel seems better than the first season! I'd suggest they have learned some valuable lessons in the first series.

The plot is more complex and more gripping than before. The actors play their roles perfectly. I think the direction / camera work has improved slightly as well.

The writing / dialogue is outstanding. I was gripped from start to finish. I cant wait for the next episode and to see how this season finishes. I wonder what season 3 will be? is andy better and able to continue? whatever happens I hope it carries on for a long time to come.

Quite sick, Ingenious ways of getting revenge kind of like she just watched the movie hostel for inspiration! Could have been done a lot better, poor American style directing didn't help. The actors all did a good job with what they had. though the writing was minimalist shall we say.....

was justice served?... I'd say yes! A lot more could have been made of this film, boring slasher movie style soundtrack didn't help either.

Lots of plot holes, no getting to know the characters in depth at all. Very basic story line.

Despite all this it was a powerful film that kept me gripped to the TV - mainly out of disgust!! I wont feel any urges to watch it again.... I think the message to girls is don't go anywhere on your own there are some twisted people out there.

despite some poor reviews i went into this with an open mind. The story was good (ish) the right actors were in place, the writing was OK ish too.

The thing is this was an action movie and I'm sorry to say all the fight scenes were a cheap Hollywood camera trick..... Every time they got into it, you know ripping someones arm off or something the camera moved up close and shook a lot. It's like they can't be bothered to choreograph and film fight scenes anymore and thats a shame because Jstat can really do it well as we saw in transporter. Unfortunately he hasn't been in a good movie since the transporter trilogy.

If your a true movie fan don't bother watching this, if your at the movies to play with your girlfriends leg etc then go for it.

I think his next film should be called "The pink fluffy gigalo" or something because going by his recent films he cant fight or perhaps holly thinks we don't mind being camera conned??

unsettling subject matter, powerful film, dark, beautiful, touching a sad reflection on a subject matter where a story like this just adds to the bewilderment of why people do such things, very sad to watch perfect acting by all & brave director to take on such a film the story could have been more focused but i was glued to the screen due to empathy with some characters and loaving for others - an area where a lot of films fail. I feel the other reviewers who have said this is wishy washy and a load of rubbish have no imagination, you must allow yourself to be swept away with the film. If you can do that the cgi etc just enhances the film. Such people with no imagination should stick to watching soaps and the news!! do not watch this and expect to laugh or have fun afterwards its quite sad to watch.

i didn't know what the film was about before i watched it so it hit me a little bit. please read IMDb main page for description of the film, these are my thoughts after watching it.

a note to the geeks who have prattled on about a book it was based on. get over it. a movie is a vastly different media to a book and will never be the same. i wish people would stop going on about books when reviewing a movie. take it as it is. if i love a book that much i wouldn't watch the film based on it.

OK - when i first watched this I just thought it was a really bad example of Hollywood plastic cheese! ......but I forced myself to watch on (as i like fantasy fiction) and it has to be said the characters just got better and better.

Its fun to watch if you let your imagination go... just don't try to think about it too much, definitely a show to watch that uses no brain power whatsoever! cara stands out mainly because she is always dressed in leather / pvc! almost worth watching the show just for her.

I hope they don't do a season 3 I suspect my brain will regress to that of a 10 year old if i force my self to watch another season!

wow I didn't know bridget fonda had it in her! this film would have been average if it wasn't for bfondas performance. i was gripped from start to finish purely by the passion she put into the role.

The story is told nicely and the characters in the film are well rounded but its really bf that totally steals the show.

I wont tell the story as we all know it so well from the french version. In that film the director was the star, with this one its bfonda. harvey keitel had an amusing little part too.

In parts it does go on a bit so i would say this is a film to watch on a cold winters night when u have no distractions. for a similar performance from bridget see kiss of the dragon with jet li