Protraph Lack of good storyline.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

emuir-1 Within five minutes I had figured out that this film was made by a woman - a vanity project for the star. It screams feminism. The British warriors fighting the Romans in Northern England are all women, their men having been killed. They even have a token confident assertive black woman ship owner - what was she doing on Hadrian's wall? Katherine's writings are distributed by women couriers, and so on. I was expecting the current obligatory lesbian relationship, but might have missed it when I finally gave up pausing it to do something else and switched it off permanently. Apart from being incomprehensible plot wise, the dialog screamed out for dubbing. I had no problem with the written dialog, just - the - way - it - was - delivered. The leading lady who also produced, spoke in a stilted phonetic English that was excruciating to listen to. Dubbing the foreign actors in normal speed would have sped up the film 75%. OK she gets applause for trying, but the audience deserves better. I really thought I was watching a post war Italian sandals and toga epic.My question, how did the female Mel Gibson get the funding for this vanity project? It was almost as bad, not quite, but almost, as the independent film about St. Theresa of Liseiux. This film did not even deserve to go straight to DVD, it should have gone into the trash can.

paul-158-824717 An intelligently written and produced movie LONG overdue. I watched the film not knowing what to expect because I'd heard the kerfuffle about it being completely different to the trailer. WHY LIONSGATE TRIED TO MASK THE ACTUAL STORY WITH THAT STRANGE TRAILER IS BEYOND ME ! So I took a chance in the hope that what I'd heard about it being a good movie would carry some truth because I can't stomach another battle scene with 20 billion CGI soldiers (yawn yawn) and an invincible lead actor rescuing his bit on the side (or in this case on a wheel) and sure enough, my hunch was right. This is a thinking person's movie, and the producers got it bang on with what violence was portrayed involving Barbarians and Romans who had invaded their lands. If you want lots of ARRGH, OWCHES, BLOOD, and a couple of "OH MY GOD'S, with little thought for content, then this movie is NOT for you. If you savour the English language and want to hear it masterfully spoken, then who better than Peter O'Toole and Edward Fox. They really are out there, however, the surprise in this movie is Romanian actress Nicole Keniheart ( Saint Katherine), who takes the language to another level. Grab this DVD and watch it twice, because Keniheart (although with a seductive foreign accent) speaks with a delicate voice but with scarily prophetic dialogue, to say she is beautiful is an understatement. I found myself going to bed with a somewhat guilty conscience about my own life. The producers have mastered the art of sound production to perfection, along with a great music score. Downside is NOT LONG ENOUGH. Upside is PERFORMANCE and UNIQUENESS. Oh, I now know where the Catherine Wheel comes from.

Amrit Tamang Not only being unaware of any review but also about any fact of its content, I watched it because Peter O'Toole featured in it. However, this is a movie that requires thorough preparation. Not only does one need to know some of the history, and of course the actual Katerina, no also about Eastern religion should one know at least a bit. Sadly it is only the latter of which I know something about.But first to the movie itself. It was one of Ingmar Bergman's paradigm not to use music unless it is actually played in the scene, e.g. when the stereo plays. This movie is the most extreme antithesis to it. There is a constant stream of string music, occasionally supported by some drums. It would have served the atmosphere simply to not use any sort of music at all. My rating would have gone up at least a star.While the music poses some sort of (bright neon-) red thread, the film itself lacks it. It is some sort of patchwork that especially in the beginning seem like completely random bits of flashy colors. As an ideology driven under-budgeted piece of work it rather feels surreal. This is the most positive feature of the film Michael Redwood has achieved.While I absolutely enjoyed Nicole Keniheart as Katerina from the perspective of acting (was that accent natural? If not: Why, Redwood? Why?), her character entrapped herself in inconsistencies.Not knowing the historical Katerine, I was at first lead to believe she was denouncing any deities, being some sort of atheist. You might think, how I could have done that since it clearly must have been a Christian but I would hold the utter surrealistic atmosphere as possible explanation for this misconception. She does sound a bit like a Buddhist at times. And this is where the grandest mistake of the films writers occurred. Lending from ideologies, philosophies, or religions one should actually have understood their notions. This was obviously not the case here.While it was a strange mix of feminist and Buddhist/Hindu thought to portray her as the incarnation of Nefertiti, and sort of brave, in the end it did not work. She was confronted by this evil guy--sorry, I did not remember that name--showing her a, rather the, bust of Nefertiti which could identify although she had never seen it, nor heard this name in her present life. Okay, for me its fine to, just like that, introduce reincarnation into Christianity. The question whether that can make sense or it is completely contradictory remains.Where she got entangled in inconsistency with the foreign source was when she foretold the evil guy that after this life his soul would end. Not only that but that was even a bad thing. The guy got upset and she felt so sorry for him, that she shed a tear. So why is that inconsistent. Reincarnation is part of Hinduism and Buddhism in which it is a rather clearly explained sort of natural law. Both the Hindus and Buddhist actually try to escape this cycle of existences because it entails endless suffering. At this point we have our first inconsistency--unless Katerina shed tears of joy. Which by the way she did not. She gave that evil guy the prophecy like it was something really bad. Now we need to go a bit further. According to Buddhist belief (I am not well versed in Hindu thought) any sort of conventional happiness experienced within this prison of consecutive lives is impermanent and as such is not desirable. The goal is a sort of ultimate happiness, the utter liberation from suffering, nirvana. So, is the evil guy about to achieve this state after his present life? Rather not. How should we understand this state? Katerina tells the evil guy that he would simply stop to exist. That is of course not Buddhist and, granted, it was not supposed to be. The state one achieves at enlightenment is beyond any sort of extremes. This is already in the sutras, i.e. the earliest Buddhist texts. Later the thought was put into a wonderful system by the Buddhist saint (can we actually say that?) and philosopher Nagarjuna. The Buddha made it clear that when achieving enlightenment he will neither be existent, non-existent, both, or neither. He will be beyond such dualistic concepts.While that was just a bit off-topic, it makes clear that there is much more to reincarnation than what Western media is able to digest. Filmmakers should give such notions more thought before they assimilate truncated, if not completely twisted, versions of them. I mean seriously, there is reincarnation but that one evil guy will simply stop to exist? The last time I was politely told that unbelievers will simply stop to exist after the purgatory at the end of the world was when I actually let in some Jehovah's Witnesses to have a chat with them.

christiank7 If we are to make a comment about this film it will certainly help if we compare it to a similar one, namely "Agora" Hypatia of Alexandria which was a fantastic epic and extremely well crafted which I can not say for this DECLINE in English cinema. What were the producers thinking when they gave the go-ahead for this over acted and under-scripted sprawling and incoherent diatribe? It is astonishing how low a quality of acting this film contained and that includes the late O'Toole. Sorry pal, it was not your finest hour but I do not blame you for this because the director must accept full responsibility for allowing daily rushes like this to be regarded as "IN THE CAN". Absolutely amateurish and low quality. As to the theme and plot of this tired film. If we take another comparison and this time of a writer named Garry Jennings who wrote a giant of a novel about this same period we see what serious research brings against the off the cuff thinking used by these scriptwriters. It almost made me feel like a sorry excuse for the actions of the lowly Wall Street morons under the banner of being the 99 percent people. PATHETIC! The only redeeming aspect of this film was that due to its scope we actually got a feeling for the decline. OK Great to see something actually worked and that was why I gave it 3 points but really I am being seriously generous.