Medieval Reviews
The film works best as a passable small-scale battle epic, but beyond that, it’s rough sledding.
| Apr 7, 2023
Any movie that calls itself Medieval, with the story taking place in medieval Europe, fails to have any credibility when the lead character has an American accent. It's just one of many problems in this mindless and boring action film.
| Mar 25, 2023
This is a full-blooded take on the true story of a legendary Czech folk hero, and writer-director Petr Jakl infuses it with plenty of entertaining myth-making.
| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 3, 2022
Big and imposing but visually grubby, narratively often indecipherable and ultra-violent....A dour, lumbering and often quite unpleasant take on Žižka’s transformation from stone-cold mercenary soldier to popular hero.
| Original Score: C- | Oct 27, 2022
If it can’t muster much historical insight, this Bohemian foray rhapsodises violence all too effectively: mace-smitings, nose-bitings, even a lion crunching someone’s head like a boiled sweet.
| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 25, 2022
Medieval is an epic mix of bloodthirsty swordplay and historical drama which features a number of familiar faces.
| Oct 24, 2022
This really is not a terribly competent film... It feels like they're auditioning for a video game.
| Sep 19, 2022
Bloody historical biopic has gory battles, little depth.
| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 17, 2022
It puts up quite a fight — in terms of some dazzling swordplay and bloody battle sequences — but this ambitious historical epic struggles to generate emotional depth beneath the violent surface.
| Sep 16, 2022
Far from perfect, but a million miles away from disaster, Medieval doesn’t quite live up to the legendary status of its central figure, but who or what even can?
| Sep 14, 2022
Absent any legible mythmaking, coherent context or memorable imagery, Medieval will make the history books for all the wrong reasons.
| Original Score: 4.1/10 | Sep 13, 2022
Director Petr Jákl oversees a sincere yet dysfunctionally-assembled medieval flop.
| Sep 12, 2022
when men are being drowned, eviscerated, hung, impaled, burnt and smashed Medieval is blunt force fun.
| Original Score: 68/100 | Sep 11, 2022
Lacking either The Northman's unified sense of vision or Gladiator's quality compositions, the dour Medieval can only crumple under its own weight.
| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 10, 2022
With a flat story and flat emotions throughout the film, Medieval might fade into the background while we’re typing this review.
| Original Score: 4/10 | Sep 10, 2022
Amid the beards, blood and grime is a solid blend of history and genre.
| Original Score: 82/100 | Sep 9, 2022
Struggles as a work of historical fiction, but when the action mounts, it’s immersive and exciting.
| Sep 9, 2022
Foster is a fine actor, but he seems miscast as the hero in this multinational, accent-deaf historical adventure.
| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 9, 2022
A film with an identity crisis, caught between its lowbrow sword-and-splatter charms and grander ambitions... The clarity of message gets hopelessly bogged down in the internecine conflicts of all the players.
| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 9, 2022
This crash course in Czech history is often compelling for its intricate details, but rarely for its characterizations, dialogue, or dramatic tension.
| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Sep 9, 2022