Medieval

Even if Medieval occasionally succumbs to its worst biopic influences, it’s still a delightfully confident work from a filmmaking team that knows its way around a sword.

Medieval succeeds as a lively, handsome chunk of history (however freely imagined), with nary a dull moment between densely-packed intrigues, chases and battles.

Medieval works best when it throws dirt, mud, blood, and body parts at the screen, with the crunching battle scenes just about overcoming the narrative shortcomings.

It’s all perfectly workmanlike, save for the fights, which are splendid. If Medieval Times are your jam (as they are mine), Medieval is worth a look and almost entertaining enough to get by.

Already working with a shakily thin script, Jákl weighs his movie down with an overly self-serious aesthetic, to the point that even the target audience might find the two-hour runtime a tough sit.

Medieval is a bleak and visually oversaturated allegory about the 15th century revolutionary Czech soldier turned military leader Jan Žižka (Ben Foster). There's blood and chainmail, yes, but it's also a self-serious allegory about duty and faith during miserable times.

The movie shouts things that should be subtext so loudly that what’s actually happening tends to get drowned out.

A nice medieval film about a Czech war hero. Quality fights, nice visuals, excellent actors. The movie surprised and impressed me.

A potent screenplay, choreography, casting, soundtrack, editing and high production value culminate to make the compelling medieval setting come to life. As other reviews mention there is some brutal gore during the combat sequences. There were a couple of scenes with awful dubbing/editing (possible COVID impact?). I enjoyed this movie and admire it's respect for historical accuracy with costume design and combat scenes. Not wholly original stuff but very well done.

For the most expensive Czech film ever made, this was a flop. $20.3Mil USD to the gutters with mid writing and acting. What puzzles me is why did the Czech director make a movie about Czech history, yet hired an English cast with an American protagonist. Ben Foster didn't even bother to try a European accent, he spoke super American which completely spoiled the European setting. My favorite part is when Ben Foster went suicide mode to 1v10 to save the villagers. The villagers just stood there watching Ben/Jan get tag teamed. Only until Jan was beaten and tied up did the villagers suddenly want to charge in suicidally. If only they helped Jan while he was fighting, they wouldn't have all died just to untie him. Quite lazy writing, hurts my brain. At the very least, please hire Czech actors next time. Petr Jákl, you betrayed your own country by ignoring your own people for a film about your people. Shame.

The movie is long, the pacing was all over the place, and the dubbing was obvious in some spots. That said the story was compelling and the characters were well done. The action was also decent, if gratuitous at times. Some of the battle sequences were really clever as well.