In 17th century Spain Diego Alatriste, a brave and heroic soldier, is fighting in his King's army in the Flandes region. His best mate, Balboa, falls in a trap and, near to death, asks Diego to look after his son and teach him to be a soldier.
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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
Expected more
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
It's 1622. Spain is ruled by King Philip IV. Diego Alatriste (Viggo Mortensen) leads his feared Spanish soldiers on a raid in Flanders. He returns to Madrid and gets caught up in an assassination attempt with Gualtiero Malatesta. His young charge Íñigo Balboa is taken with Angélica de Alquézar. He and his men are sent back to Flanders.The plot is jam packed and disjointed. It's hard to follow. It skips time. The story simply doesn't flow. Apparently, this encompassed several books and it shows. The actors are game. There are compelling fighting scenes. It's just a pain to keep track of the characters and their story lines. Without the flow, it's hard to feel for these characters. It has to be much more compelling to do a smaller part of the story and let the sequels come if they're able. This is good for fans of the books but I doubt others would find this compelling.
I gave it a 9... and I would have given this movie a 10 if only in the start they didn't say: "Spain ruled the world" ... which was widely acknowledged at that time and even at this time with all the historic studies that it wasn't true.Beyond the written introduction... I had to watch this movie 3 times in a row within a weeks' time in order to satisfy my believe that this theme is as close to Renaissance era as any other movie could make believe.Viggo's acting was incredible as usual... along with all other characters in the movie from start to finish.The storyline is remarkably amazing, along with the entire historical setting and cinematics. I couldn't be more happier for all history fans as I was.The ending was very aspiring, as well as "realistic" in my point of view; in comparison to Hollywood's bull-crap where the main character worships the girl at end of the movie, or in nicer words: the main character does a 100% complete change of profile at the very end of movie.But in Alatriste; Viggo starts as a mercenary and ends the movie being a mercenary... Not end it by running off with a girl and worship her till next world to come.I cannot say anymore words except please watch this if you are a history fan... it is beautiful !
it is difficult to define it like a good or bad movie. it is , in same measure, not exactly an adaptation. because the ambition was to create a film in which Mortenson must be great. piece in Spanish atmosphere, with a lot of fight scenes, with a script like suggestion of few novels, with dark parts, love, sacrifice, traitors, competition between strong men, duty and a super hero in old fashion style. a film who hope to present fragments of charming tale of a Modern hero with crumbs of history. result - lovely movie for the fans. and nothing really new. because all is a play with a star. and the clothes of Alatriste is just new - old version of a series of roles. so, an usual drama of dark character , mixture of courage, loyalty, sadness, hope and sacrifice.
The episodic, incoherent script patches together highlights from FIVE historical adventure novels spanning a 20-year period of the 17th century. This film takes for granted that we already know something of the era's Spanish political, literary, artistic and military history. Even Spaniards found this movie confusing, so what hope do we foreign viewers have? Mortensen is very good in the title role, though the Argentine Spanish of his youth occasionally creeps through the European accent he learned for the film. In fact, the whole cast is good, but they're trapped in a hopeless script that skips and jumps over plot points too fast while still somehow remaining plodding and dull.The visual style works well, and I like the brutality of the battle scenes. (In English-language films, by comparison, war often comes off as a bit too clean and tidy.)The Alatriste novels have a lot to offer, so ideally this should have been made as a TV miniseries.