NEW Druids (DVD)

First, they treat the main character Vergingetorix very poorly. Christopher Lambert looks absolutely ridiculous, and reading in Anthesteria's review that he was supposed to be young at the beginning makes me laugh even more. His hairdo looks like they slapped a bad wig over his balding scalp...matter of fact, they probably did. They also develop his character poorly and the movie simply expects you to BELIEVE he is a great, brave man. Characters are continually saying, "You are a great warrior! As good as your father!" but you know what he does to prove this? He stabs a man...with a spear...from behind...on horseback...and the guy was sitting down...and unarmed...and uh...yeah...

And now I must give my biggest grief about this movie: they chose the absolute worst man to play Caesar. Not acting-wise, in that area the man was fine, but...the way he looked? No! During this campaign Caesar's camp was ambushed at night, and he went through out the legions fighting at the front line with his men to inspire them. The man in this movie doesn't do much with his sword except spin it around in one scene, and he doesn't look like the battle-hardened veteran Caesar was. This combined with Christopher Lambert as Vergingetorix with a comb-over does not make for good re-enactments.

The battles are actually decent I suppose, particularly those involving the siege of Alesia. There is a grave exception though: in a siege scene before it, the Druids have women atop the wall go topless apparently to distract the Roman soldiers. OK, but...did we really need it to go on so long? I didn't keep track of time but it almost felt like half the movie was that scene of topless women laughing in their annoying tone - and no these aren't just model women, these are OLD women too, and overweight women.

"The most exciting historical drama since Braveheart" the back of the video box claims. They must have seen a different "Braveheart," because the version I know could be forgiven for all its historical inaccuracies for providing a good story with well-done characters. If the people who did "Druids" had done "Braveheart" they would have had 30 minutes of naked women before the Battle of Stirling Bridge and made William Wallace a dumpy old man with two strands of hair.

Druids looks to me like a bad soap opera. The costumes looked as if the makers of this film have studied cartoons like "Asterix and Obelix" rather than history books.

Christophe Lambert has played in a lot of good movies but also bad ones and this is one of his worst.

Everything in this film just has the feel of being fake. The worst are the Teutons who are ALL shown red-haired. What a joke. Did they all fall into the same pot of red paint?

Brandauer and his cynicism kept me going in that movie. This is how Caesar should be portrayed: as a ruthless, cynical, and ice-cold careerist politician who walks over corpses to achieve his political aims. That portrayal of Caesar in the film is good and historically accurate.

The rest should be kept in silence.

If the French ever see how the Gauls are portrayed in this film, the director will never be allowed to enter France again.