The Basic Plot in Five Words or Less: English people back then sucked.

Alternate Basic Plot in Five Words or Less: Don't piss off William Wallace.

My Basic Ramblings: I was asked by a member of the ever-expanding Movie Review Abattoir Mailing List to review this movie.  Y'all speak, I listen.  That's the way things work.

After I watched the movie, I was struck by the many similarities between this movie and Titanic. Allow me to list them now.

1. Both movies won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, but did not win any awards for acting.
2. Both featured soundtracks written by James "Throw A Few More Uillean Pipes Into The Mix" Horner.
3. Both did not exactly follow history to the letter.
4. Both featured characters saying things that didn't quite fit into the time period of the movie (did people in the 1300's say "kiss my arse"?)

So why, if all these statements are true, did I enjoy Braveheart and find Titanic a pain? Well....I thought about that. And I think it boils down to the fact that our main characters in both movies, William Wallace and Rose Bukater, were both presented as noble, pure-of-heart victors of all that's good and right in the world, but only Wallace was really worthy of the title. (Rose was too busy boinking Leo and hogging space on the floating door to care about her mother, her fiance, and the fate of all the other people on the boat.  If she'd been in Mel's last scene in Braveheart, she would've screamed "Mercy!" from the get-go.)

Anyway, this review is not about Titanic (it seems like all the movie reviews I've done lately have involved that movie one way or another, doesn't it?). It's about Braveheart, the movie that took the Academy Award for Best Picture away from my beloved movie Babe.

I'm not as upset as once I was about this fact.

Have you ever been to one of those Renaissance Faire things? They have 'em in the summer around here, and a few years ago I went.  Everyone wanders around in leather bodices speaking in Ye Olde Englishe and making candles.  Watching this movie was sort of like that, except the people in the movie were a bit more difficult to understand (thank God for closed captioning) and a bit dirtier. (I imagine that the people in the Renaissance Faire would get their Ye Olde Arses fired if they didn't bathe.)

Usually I don't think much about Mel Gibson - he doesn't stick in my mind like, say, Harrison Ford or Kevin Spacey (or Angus MacFadyen, but more about him later). He was really good in this movie, though - I only thought of Christopher Lambert and Highlander once.

So Scotland wants to be free so it can become a country of heroin addicts and so Danny Boyle can make the documentary Trainspotting. It's up to Mel to lead the brigade of determined Scots and psycho Irish guys to beat the jerky English, which he accomplished by sleeping with the Princess of Wales and through several big battles.

I wonder how Mel directed the battle scenes (particularly the one at Stirling).  Was it a carefully choreographed affair, with each of the extras training on the proper way to wield an axe, or a club, or did Mel basically say "Okay, just go out there and pretend to beat the crap out of each other. If you can, aim for the squibs. And take off those friggin' sunglasses!"

Memo to Murron:  If you're riding a horse away from the guys who tried to assault you and whose face you tried to eat, duck. (My mother was quite upset by her demise - she (my mother) thought she (Murron) was quite pretty.)

Then there's Robert the Bruce (insert obligatory Springsteen joke here). I looked up Angus MacFadyen's filmography on the IMDB and discovered that he's also portrayed (or will portray) Orson Welles, Hitler and Richard Burton. Pretty big variety (unless you equate Orson Welles with Hitler.  Personally, I don't, but Kate Winslet's character from Heavenly Creatures might). Anyone know anything more about him? (And did anyone not think it was him under the toaster-esque helmet at the last battle?)

If you were in a land where if you got married, you'd have to spend your wedding night with some icky pasty-white English lord, would you (a) forget the whole marriage thing; (b) get married in secret; (c) have a super, super low-key celebration, or (d) get married in a big celebration anyway, and be absolutely, positively shocked when the aforementioned icky pasty-white English lord showed up?

Anyway, I thought the way they had Murron walking through the crowd right before Wallace got executed was a very nice touch.  And one more word about that last scene, from my sister:

"What the hell are they doing to Mel Gibson in that final scene? I mean, it's obvious they're doing something to his innards but it's almost worse that you *don't* know. And you don't know where, either....are they pulling out intestines? Making sure he dies childless? It gives me the creeps just thinking about it."

Nevertheless, icky executions aside, I enjoyed this movie quite a bit and I'm glad it was suggested to me to review.

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