Full quote (reconstructed): An incredibly mediocre Braveheart with a 21st Century Twist so lame it begs the question: why bother? (Sigh.) What a steaming pile of nothing in particular.<br /><br />Thankfully I haven't read the book, so at least I was spared the full horror of this tiresome made-for-TV style widescreen time waster. What I got from it was just boredom, a mild sense of betrayal (made easier to bear by low expectations), irritation at the careless plot holes and appallingly uninterested acting, and a growing hatred for the characters that had me rooting for . . . well, no one.<br /><br />An exception to the otherwise universal pointlessness was Gerard Butler as Marek. He really stood out. In fact his brief verbal description of the siege of Castlegard early on was probably, in terms of action, the most exciting moment of the film. He almost made it seem as if something interesting might happen later.<br /><br />But Anna Friel did have a cute smile, no doubt about it, and the wayward comings and goings of her medieval Frenchness were a highlight. The maniacal rugby playing English leader, Lord Whatever, was all right in small doses. The colours were nice enough, and the river was a believable river. Also the catapults were good.<br /><br />The rest was dreadful, but not in a great way. David Thewlis, for example, seemed to be played by a stand-in, not that anyone else was fully present (again, except for Butler, perhaps he didn't get the memo). And between them Billy Connolly (stumble, whimper, whine), Paul Walker ("Be careful!") and Frances O'Connor (who am I in this scene?), along with whoever cobbled together and okayed the script, created the most lacklustre and unlikeable bunch of bewildered heroes I think I've ever seen outside of satire. But, and this must be stressed, they were not funny.<br /><br />The villains were equally pathetic. The plot absurd. Events "back in the present" did not add drama to the medieval storyline, but just sort of interrupted it like commercial breaks. And so on, etc.<br /><br />In all, reading the reviews at IMDb was more involving than the film.