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Sadly Over-hyped

From my favorite movies..

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I saw this film recently, re-released under the title Thrones and Empires, no doubt to try and cash on the Game Of Thrones fan base.Well Game of Thrones it ain't. Its even not a good version of Hamlet. All the more shame its made by a Danish production company, the production values, acting, script and delivery have to be seen to be believed.What amazes me is how on earth they got such an amazing cast to sign on to this terrible piece of crap. Helen Mirren actually gets her boobs out again and I thought she was past doing all that by this stage. There are needless shots of female nudity thrown in, why I have no idea.Christian Bale is probably really glad no one has seen this. The finale is the big fight battle, filled with so many unintentional moments and just god awful staging along with needless smoke everywhere. The whole thing is truly dire. Avoid at all costs!

I rarely write reviews, but having come to IMDb to see if others had been as appalled with the lack of craft displayed in this film as I was, I was shocked to see that some actually thought that this was a decent effort! Lest others conned into purchasing this abortion of a movie, let me redress the balance.To give some background, I purchased a DVD of this film, (rebranded 'Thrones & Empires') based on the strong cast list. I watched it with a growing sense of disbelief and horror at how such a slew of excellent actors could be wasted in such a truly poor film.OK, so it is clearly a film made with a very low budget but, boy, I can't recall when I last saw a film with such awful direction, editing, script (was there one?) and lack of cinematic vision.The director, Gabriel Axel, should be truly ashamed of himself for wasting such acting talent: to a man (and woman), the performances either wooden or hammy - none inhabit their roles properly. The editing is simply laughable - probably at its worst when scenes start before actors have started moving/acting ... and as for the fight scenes - oy vey! Cliché after cinematic cliché - I felt I was watching a Mel Brooks pastiche at times.A criminal waste of acting talent - and possibly the worst film I've seen, and I've seen some bad 'uns!

When I got over the initial surprise of what this movie was,(for some reason the writers of the blurb on the tape packaging don't want you to know), I found myself enjoying it.This is not Shakespeare's Hamlet, with poetry, dramatic speeches and opportunities for showy histrionics but a steadily paced re-telling of the original Norse legend.It's not for everybody but I found the combination of bleak Jutland scenery, calm voice-over narration and the momentum of the Royal intrigues fascinating and hypnotic.Good acting by the principals.

There was a 5 catalog titles for a dollar special, but the selection was terrible and I couldn't find a 5th title I hadn't seen that looked watchable. Finally, I stumbled across this movie. I'd never heard of it, but considering The Usual Suspects, Miller's Crossing, & The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover are some of my favorite movies, and Bale is also talented, I figured this should be a winner. Big mistake!The writing was all around horrible. Generic 4th grade script where some things happened, but you could see them coming a mile away and even if you couldn't you still weren't given any reason to care. The movie was half over before Bale was sent off and it became remotely interesting. Bale did a great job considering he had nothing to work with, but that was the only positive of the movie. Byrne gave his usual professional performance, but the weakness in the scripting of his lines undermined it. Mirren tried, but her only scenes that could have had potential were in the first half when there was no emotion to be found anywhere else, so she almost seemed insincere in trying to bring some. Kate Beckinsale also made an appearance, but her part was basically just smiling at Bale, who quickly married her. Aside from the script, the movie was also filmed with all the style of the various Saturday WPIX TV series. 2/10