I enjoyed this, but I wouldn't call it a great film or a classic. It's well acted, directed and I loved the brutal insanity of the final battle, but something was definitely missing with this movie. I don't know, but I think it could have been way more epic and I honestly wasn't a big fan of how the British were portrayed. Outside of Stephen Dillane as King Edward the rest of them felt so cartoony to me, especially the idiot of a son who was just a poor excuse of a villain and not menacing in the slightest.

Chris Pine does a solid job acting wise here, but his Scottish accent sounded inconsistent at times and I didn't really care much for his love interest either. My favorite parts of his movie were easily the scenes with Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I thought he was great.

B

My feelings are mixed, but leaning toward the positive. It is superbly photographed, for one. The extended opening shot, which winds in and out of King Edward I's tent and includes a "playful"-but-truly-tense sword fight between Robert the Bruce and the future Edward II, is an ambitious and bold opening salvo. The Scottish countryside is never less than mysterious and sumptuous as framed and lit here.

And the plentiful battle sequences nicely alternate between geography-establishing wide shots and intimate plunges into the agony, blood, sweat, and general filth of combat. They are enthralling and painful in equal measure. Production values are high in general; no one could fault the detail and scope of the art direction and costume design.

Character and story are where the film falters to a degree. An uncertain band of put-upon men rebelling against a more powerful tyranny will always hold a certain David-versus-Goliath appeal, but this particular telling is frequently short on emotion even as its cinematic sweep holds one's attention.

Chris Pine is a charismatic and handsome actor in general, but he is so dialed down as Robert, threatening at times to slip from brooding to bland. The screenplay never allows us much access to Robert's mind, either; he does what he does because he did what he did and because this film needs a central hero. What truly drives him, presumably a blend of ambition, patriotism, and rage at the indignities visited upon the Scots in his lifetime, never feels apparent and alive. And Billy Howle's performance as Edward II is so over-the-top in its sniveling malevolence as to resemble a cartoon.

Superior are Florence Pugh, enigmatic as Robert's second wife and queen consort Elizabeth, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is oddly transfixing (and mostly unrecognizable) as James Douglas, the courageous-but-slightly-insane son of a disgraced feudal lord.

It would be interesting to see the footage cut after its film-festival premiere. Reportedly 20 to 25 minutes were excised, including a meeting between Robert and William Wallace.

A mostly boring bummer of a movie.

Chris Pine having a beard and an accent does not help the argument that all the Chris’ are actually the same.