The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

First off let me say i know a little bit about history and the historical inaccuracies made me want to kill myself. The violence was awful and i hate that technique where you are about to see something violent and then it cuts away. It was a stupid idea making this pg- 13 because if it was R it could be like 300 or Immortals and the inaccuracies don't matter just hot women and people dying. I was about to stop watching until that hot girl came out of the water and I still almost regret finishing it. It had good actors so that was not a problem but after i looked this movie up I found it was based on a book and very loosely based on that book. Seriously the people who made this movie like the director did not know what they were doing and they do not know anything about history or common sense. There were Goths wearing fur on a hot island in the sea for crying out loud. And the idea was just a copy from the movie King Arthur with Clive Owen that ties it to the Roman Empire which was smart cause they had enough to make it work but this did not.

I wanted to like this movie more than I did. I'm normally a sucker for these kind of historical romantic fantasies. But I think it had several problems. Much of it might be due to the use of music. The score seemed 1) Kind of dated (could be because another reviewer said it was a shameless copy of Manon Lescaut by Puccini) but it just didn't have a contemporary feel to the mood it tried to set ... like something Williams or Silvestri would have composed. And 2) It was ubiquitous! Every time the kid picked his nose, the "hero" music would start up. It was just WAY over used. It started feeling like an old Cecil B. DeMille technicolor "over the top" epic where the color is TOO rich and the music TOO inspiring.Lefler might've done well to remember that sometimes "less is more."The plot was a little formulaic as well with it's cast of characters. The love story subplot seemed forced to me. I didn't get ANY chemistry from the two. Mira had more outfit changes than Lady Gaga at the Oscars. And the storyline could have been told with a little more mystery in it's pacing perhaps .... but that damn "hero's score" swelling to a crescendo every 90 seconds just ruined it for me.All in all, it's watchable and a fun rollick ... but it's not the epic it could have been with a few changes. Perhaps even with just a change in the music.

Oh, dear. It's a really bad movie, but still worth watching, even for laughs (or for unshaven Colin Firth).I swear I was told it is an "epic historical drama". By my sense, it is just a little less historically accurate than "Asterix in Britain". Why didn't they go for a full fantasy picture, but only used style of filming typical for fantasy movies and pretended to be using historical setting? Maybe that's how you could film a legend.Legends, however, most of all show how certain people today want to define their identity. By this interpretation of the Arthurian legend Britain apparently says: "we, the British, have the true spirit of Roman soldiers, and totally so do Black and Hindu people under our rule." I'm not sure if it's plain imperialism or just political correctness gone wrong and whether I should laugh (well, I did almost every time I saw that fat African-American dude among the Roman legionaries) or just get sick (it's a modern movie, do people really think that way?). I think Firth's many roles as an upper-class English gentleman contribute to this picture.There are many things that didn't make sense neither historically nor within the plot. It's hard to say whether the creators of the movie were ignorant or rather purposefully wanted to show their beliefs and values regardless of the general knowledge. I'm not going to list every detail, but surely the better you know history, the louder you'll laugh.Putting the confusing overtones and nonsensical settings aside, it is an enjoyable adventure with some funny moments and moving hugs. The movie is also family-friendly, because there is nothing inappropriate except sword fights. And even though Aishwarya Rai looks gorgeous, there's no chemistry between the male and female protagonists, the romance is implied just because they are the male and female protagonists. The implication is so weak, that I (an imaginative adult) honestly though they lied on the bed together because it was cold.My guess about the target audience was perfect. Within IMDb demographics the movie is rated the highest by Males under 18 (action-adventure plot with a sophistication of the last decade's PC game) and Females over 45 (sincerly, Colin Firth has never looked so manly in any other movie). Doesn't it speak volumes?I must have really overrated the movie with 4 stars, but at least I had a good laugh and didn't get bored. Also, there was the moon shown twice in different phases, which is the most rare things in movies (in almost all cases it is only the full moon which is the proper hint that it is night) and that excuses the poorly digitally pasted backgrounds in view scenes and saves a star.Dear me, I still can't stop laughing. Maybe re-reading some fragments from a history book and re-watching "Mamma Mia!" will help me restore sanity.And if there is any new movie about Spartans, Vikings and Ninjas coming out, make sure Colin Firth is in it. Unshaven.

I read the book and it wasn't that bad either. Sure it had quite some clichés and was very predictable...we could say Hollywood-ish, but was decent enough fun.Seeing the movie i'm quite disappointed. It's not just that the plot is almost entirely different, many parts changed, a lot of them discarded. What is much worse than that, is that it has quite poor directing. Events just hope around with very little intermezzos, the story is poorly shown and it has even more clichés than the book. Many times it just gets annoying and confusing. The whole move feels extremely rushed forward.The acting isn't bad, in my opinion it has lots of potential, but it's just a shame how badly executed it was.I'm really disappointed by this movie, it had potential to be a decent piece on par with gladiator and king Arthur, but it falls very short.I highly recommend you get the book first and watch the movie after.