Richard: The Lionheart (2013) Directed by Stefano Milla

This movie is a bit of a weird one. It's about Richard the Lionheart but the movie in no way ever looks or feels like its taking place during the middle ages, or at a place that's even remotely close to England.

I also don't see how this movie is even one bit about the real historical figure and probably the foremost and perhaps even only reason why it's about Richard the Lionheart is because that way they could have a good and recognizable title for their movie. But OK, movies keep changing history all the time and often take lots of liberties with their subjects, so it isn't a complaint really.

I admit though that half of the time I don't even really know what this movie is supposed to be all about. It's far too messy really and it took me about 20 minutes to finally figure out who the main character was supposed to be in this. It's really the type of movie that absolutely requires you to first read the synopsis, or else you'll have absolutely no idea what it's all about or what's going on in it.

It's more of a "Gladiator" type of movie, weirdly enough but what's even weirder about this movie is that it seems to ripoff just about every movie Hans Zimmer composed the music for, the past few years. Yes, that even includes 'The Dark Knight Trilogy' and it also isn't even trying to sound original with the soundtrack. It's weird and distracting really, watching a movie that is supposed to take place during the dark ages, while there is some modern and also very familiar sounding music in the background.

The movie is literally following the same path of some other and much better movies. It's a safe choice; lets pick some great movie and lets steal some of the plot lines and characters from it. Safe but at the same time incredibly lazy and far from creative of course. Besides, the movie isn't handling any of the plot lines or characters all that well anyway, so it's all going to waste in this very messy and poorly handled movie.

It's hard to describe the movie its look. It's obvious that they were trying very hard to give the movie a particular style and atmosphere but it's also very obvious at the same time that they didn't really had the budget to pull it off. The movie has a vague look really and I mean that in a literal sense. Things don't always look clear and smooth, like you're watching a cheap '70's TV show.

Because of its low budget, there also isn't an awful lot of action to enjoy and the little action that is in it is far from spectacular really, despite the movie its very hard efforts.

But you know, I was never feeling bored or annoyed by anything that this movie ever did, which all is required for me to truly dislike a movie. In other words, this movie is far from the worst thing that I have ever seen and I'm not hating on it either, despite the fact that it's doing very little right.

4/10

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