Andrew Tomlinson

There really ought to be negative stars as a way of expressing how badly a movie failed to fulfill its potential. How you can decide to make a movie on THIS theme ..with THIS title.. in THIS political climate and deliver something so dull is almost a feat in of itself. Zero context or exposition. Zero characterisation or motive. Dumb inexplicable vignettes. Jarringly inappropriate soundtrack. Boring action scenes.. nothing to ever make you engaged, interested or care about whats happening. Waste of time.

I'm convinced this was generated by an AI fed a diet of Ritchie tropes and Ripping Yarns. This Boys Own pastiche is godawful.. every character a caricature, comic book dialogue, wooden acting and an endless panoply of jarringly wrong or anachronistic technical detail (to which I asked "why?" .. are they lazy or stupid? There's just no need ... ) ms Gonzalez tries her best Ana de Armas imitation and fails spectacularly. Rory Kinnear joins the trashcan of embarrassing Churchill imitations. I give it one star only for Mr Cavill's exquisite mustache.

I look forward to the biography of Nelson produced by Canal+ wherein the French can retaliate against this appalling act of character assassination and historical revisionism. No, I am not expecting a documentary but why Ridley must you try so hard to neither entertain nor educate? Especially when in 2024 society's grip on fact and truth is so tenuous? It just doesn't even work as pure cinema.. flat, disjointed.. I guess it did look pretty. Laughed out loud at some of the poor dialogue.. napoleon to British ambassador (petulantly) "you think you're so great because you have boats!" PS. Hey folks, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven are 20 years old. Don't think you're getting something on those lines.

I had to go rewatch "The Boys" to get rid of the bad taste left in my mouth. Long, convoluted, inconsistent. The attempts to replicate the wit of say Ragnorok are forced, wooden and obvious. In some cases it is laughable but not by intention. The Indian Eternal is a Bollywood star and his business partner seems to have stepped out of UK TV circa 1976. way to crush the diversity agenda. Druig has the worst irish accent and he's actually bloody irish ffs. Does it look good? Why yes of course it does thank goodness. Does it deal with more mature themes and have emotional depth? Only if your sensibilities have been crafted by a monopoly of Disney and Lifetime programming. Ugh