Medieval

Medieval

The story of 14th century Czech icon and warlord Jan Zizka who defeated armies of the Teutonic Order and the Holy Roman Empire.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 120 minutes
  • Genre: Action, Drama, History
  • Stars: Ben Foster, Sophie Lowe, Til Schweiger, Matthew Goode, Roland Møller, Michael Caine, William Moseley, Karel Roden, Jan Budař, Marek Vašut, Ondřej Vetchý, Vinzenz Kiefer, Magnus Samuelsson, Werner Daehn, Jennifer Armour, Sean Connor Renwick, Roman Šebrle, Alistair Brammer, David Bowles, Christopher Rygh, Guy Roberts, Martin Kavan, Viktor Krištof, Filip Antonio, Aneta Kernová, Romana Jákl Vítová, Denisa Pfauserová, Kevin Bernhardt, Zhang Lang, Václav Jiráček, Brian Caspe, Petr Vágner, Ben Cristovao
  • Director: Petr Jákl
 Comments
  • henry8-3 - 10 January 2023
    Medieval
    Tells a fictional early life tale, including a romance, of Czech hero Jan Zizka (Ben Foster) who is tasked by Lord Boresh (Michael Caine) to kidnap a powerful nobleman's fiancée, Jatherine (Sophie Lowe) to force the nobleman to help Wenceslas IV to be crowned the Holy Roman Emperor.

    Whilst this could easily have been your typical blood thirsty medieval epic with lots of swords, mud and limbs flying everywhere, which in large part it is, Zizka is apparently a great hero in the Czech Republic and director Petr Jákl has made a noble attempt to bring a rousing adventure of romance, drama and derring do to the screen, punctuated with familiar levels of viscera.

    To a large degree he is to be congratulated as this is often thrilling, occasionally sweet and tells a fine story. The performances are solid and Foster is good at roaring, covered in mud and blood, whilst Caine still has it and provides presence. On the downside it is a bit too long, there are a few plot holes, Zizka is laughably indestructible and the villains, whilst fun are very familiar / Sheriff of Nottingham types. Nevertheless it's good fun and quite stirring - definitely worth a look.
  • Orby2283 - 31 December 2022
    Just so dull
    Sadly I hoped I would have liked this movie, a movie called Medieval based on one of my favourite eras of human history, how can you go wrong? Well this movie finds a way.

    The movie is just slow, plodding and very dull. The action is fine if not very choppy. The editing just seems all over the place too, some scenes are paced well while others go by very quickly.

    None of the characters seem very well developed, we do not spend long enough with them to have any investment. As well as the lead character who is just as well might have been a robot, lacks any emotion or character traits, he is so one note. Things happen around this character and he doesn't flinch and it boggles my mind, because if he doesn't feel anythign about these things why should I? Sophie Lowe and Sir Michael Caine are the only actors to really show some effort and urgency in their roles. I couldn't tell you anything about anyone else.

    The sets are nice but you never hang around long enough to really soak in the locations. Nothing in this movie has time to breathe and sink in, even when there is some character development and time to settle it doesn't feel like its earned or its just exposition.

    Its a interesting premise with no real soul or heart. I was ready to turn off so close to the end.

    One compliment I will add is the costumes were really nice and the set design, when they were around them long enough to admire, were good too, and some of the action was brutally satisfying in places. But it was so hard to have to admire all of that while slugging through this movie.