Popular reviews

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  Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★½ 6

  Nobody wants to be here…
  We can only take so much.

  [Michael Caine’s gravelly voice] - After the end of 20 minutes worth of trailers everything has changed for the worse. The darkeness started to spread throughout much of the theatre and the giant screen presented us with undecipherable plot developments followed by irritatingly undecipherable wars of chaos.

  There were those of us who believed these fight scenes were so horrendously shot and edited that we would have been better served If they’d simply faded to black and let us listen to the sounds of battle for five minutes before revealing the aftermath.

  And so on it went for the next 120 minutes as the downtrodden theater was engulfed in…

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  Review by Mister Cap ★½ 5

  ENGLISH below

  Medieval heißt auf deutsch Mittelalter und nun ratet mal, in welcher Zeit dieser Film spielt. Genau, im Mittelalter. Wahrscheinlich wollten die deutschen Titelübersetzer dem Film etwas Geheimnisvolles und Mysteriöses verleihen und haben es daher bei Medieval belassen. Aber dieser tschechische Historienfilm ist genauso einfallslos wie sein Titel.

  "Medieval" ist einer dieser Filme, die keine Zeit zum Atmen haben, was sich vor allem darin zeigt, dass wir keine Chance bekommen, eine der Figuren besser kennen zu lernen.

  Der Film ist auch sehr unspannend und es gelingt ihm nicht, die Aufmerksamkeit mit Action zu halten, zumal die gebotene Action nichts Besonderes ist und höchstens die Qualität einer Aufführung auf einem Mittelalterfest erreicht. "Medieval" fühlt sich mehr wie ein Videospiel als…

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  Review by FreeJanetYellen ★½ 6

  Makes you wonder if Caine has a gambling problem or something. Not much to say about this movie, there's some fun action... but that's about it. The story seems like a bad mashup of a hundred better movies. Also the history gets a little funky but that's the least of the problems here.

  On the plus side there were clearly some post production changes that result in some rather hilarious dubbing, so it's got that going for it which is nice

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  Review by Joel R. ★★ 11

  The excellent cast does their best with the material given. (I'm a huge Ben Foster fan, he's almost always the best part of everything he's in.)

  The battles are well staged, the violence brutal and the cinematography good.

  Unfortunately none of it is enough to overcome the often confusing, super generic, incredibly cliche plot.

  I won't go so far as to say I was bored but it definitely felt longer than it's two hour run time, I can't see myself ever revising it at least not on purpose.

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  Review by san ★★ 1

  Shame on me for thinking a film titled ‘Medieval’ could be anything other than painfully generic. The two-hour story is impenetrable; I couldn’t get into it no matter how hard I tried. And as nice as the budget is, the action is so poorly edited and choreographed that I could barely make out what was going on. It’s only in the slow-burn violent scenes that the movie shines and has memorable moments, but those are so few in between. For most of the runtime, you bear witness to some of the most lifeless characters of this year.

  “Dedicated to the freedom fighters” lmao yeah right.

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  Review by Brett Arnold ★★★½

  Sure, MEDIEVAL is a pretty bad and generic title, but if you factor in that THE TWO POPES was already taken, you’d be more forgiving.

  Has this really sat on a shelf since shooting in 2018?! Did they think THE NORTHMAN paved the way for them to sneak this out there, or was it just an insanely lengthy post-production period? It’s the most expensive Czech film ever made, apparently.

  Anyway, it’s good! I’m admittedly a big Ben Foster fan but he’s not the only element that delivers - the battle scenes and fights are nasty violent and, uh, medieval as fuck, in the best way; you really feel the impact of every blow. It’s brutal in exactly the way way this type of movie should be, unflinching in its depiction of the horrors of the violence.

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  Review by Middle-Aged Crowbar Enthusiast ★ 3

  Formless mush. Grey sludge. One of those kinds of movies where it’s impossible to give a shit about anything going on. The aggressively boring, needlessly convoluted plot verily dares you to follow it. Just a bunch of dickheads in beards running around the woods in Bulgaria or wherever it is they film movies like this with 14 production company logos before the goddamn thing starts. 

  Poor Michael Caine. 
  Poor Ben Foster.
  Poor me. 

  I hate movies. They’re all terrible. 
  Please stop making them.

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  Review by joshrowley ★★

  Brutal; convoluted; flat; long; repetitive; underdeveloped; well-made; well-scored.

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  Review by Brandon Wettig ★

  Medieval has a budget that makes it look good, but with choppy editing and poor pacing, the fundamentals of character, story, plot, stakes and emotion are completely missing... thus making for a legendary bore

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  Review by Martin Kostenzer 🎞️ ★★ 16

  🌍 9-Länder-Filmtour 🌍– Community Weekend
  18.11.-20.11.2022
  Reiseführer: Andy Fell

  Reiseziel: Tschechien

  Ich beginne meine filmische Reise durch das Herz Europas im Nordosten Österreichs, im südöstlichen Nachbarland Deutschlands – in Tschechien.

  Medieval ist ein tschechischer Historienfilm des tschechischen Regisseurs Petr Jákl und erzählt einen Auszug vom Leben des tschechischen Nationalhelden Jan Zizka, der als unbesiegter Heerführer in die Geschichte des Landes einging.

  Über weite Strecken wirkt Medieval aber mehr wie ein B-Movie und man merkt, dass man abseits des Casts wohl kein allzugroßes Budget zur Verfügung hatte.
  Dafür sehen aber viele der Kulissen und wahrscheinlich realen Drehorte wirklich toll aus und man schaffte es durchaus, den Zuschauer in die mittelalterliche Welt hineinzuziehen.

  Leider schafft es aber die Story nicht diese Welt…

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  Review by Nick Rynott ★½

  Who thought this was a good idea?

  Medieval is as generic as they come, with the only bright spots being good costumes, set design, and some brutal combat sequences. Everything else attempted is a complete failure; Foster may as well be a time traveler he’s so out of place in this (I still love you Ben). There's an interesting story about a Czech warrior somewhere out there, but it sure as shit isn't in Medieval. 

  Petr Jákl must have some sensitive photos of Ben Foster, Michael Caine, and Matthew Goode.  Good gravy.

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  Review by Rollatini ★★½

  54

  Early in my viewing of Medieval, I was ready to write a review saying how surprisingly memorable it was as I was enjoying it quite a bit. But then I forgot to write the review. I think that’s telling of Medieval’s quality…

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