Ironclad is as weighed-down as it sounds.

| Original Score: C- | Jul 8, 2011

As a critic who complains about painless and brainless action movies, I hoist a glass of mead to the men and maidens of "Ironclad."

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 8, 2011

The loud, closely photographed limb-hacking becomes as monotonous as the movie's unrelentingly gray palette.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 8, 2011

A gore-filled guilty pleasure...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 8, 2011

The core fan base of this English sword battle drama will pay for the boundary-pushing blood and gore. Why bore them with things like plot and context and production values?

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 7, 2011

The action is cluttered and the story overly compressed, with a lot of yammering about who's aligned with whom and why (no wonder Mr. Giamatti's eyes keep rolling) in between the geysers of red.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 7, 2011

Through it all, Paul Giamatti spits bilious fury as a ruthless king with a mile-wide mean streak and an army of Danish mercenaries. What's not to like?

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 7, 2011

As history it's bunk; as inappropriate historical fiction, it's awfully close to comedy.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 7, 2011

Unfortunately, a narrative needs characters as well as plot, and that's where Ironclad falls off its horse.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 7, 2011

When they named 'em the Dark Ages, brother, they weren't kidding.

| Original Score: C | Jul 6, 2011

This bloody, messy action film devolves into a plain ol' bloody mess.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 6, 2011

An utterly joyless exercise in blood and dirt.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 5, 2011

While Ironclad captures the casual cruelty and flesh-and-bone violence of the 13th century, it fails to do the same in the more intimate material set in the downtime between assaults.

| Jul 5, 2011

Like most of Ridley Scott's medieval adventures, the film subscribes to such a stark good-versus-evil setup that it's devoid of any nuance or suspense.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 3, 2011

It's a persuasive portrayal of a violent era and its harsh privations.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 4, 2011

Medieval history lesson with lots of shattered bodies and splattered limbs.

| Mar 10, 2011

A topical history lesson in the form of a horror comic.

| Mar 7, 2011

Ironclad might be the perfect actioner for gorehound fanboys gaga for medieval trappings, but all others may find this British-American-German co-production a bit of a drag.

Full Review | Mar 5, 2011

Do you laugh or flinch at this sort of thing?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 4, 2011

Historically accurate? It's not certain everyone involved is even on the same script.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 3, 2011