320 - Braveheart - 2 stars
Mel put on a dodgy accent and took some liberties with history to produce a film that has some patriotic, rousing highlights but at nearly 3 hours long, slightly outstays its welcome.
Mel himself is OK as Wallace but has some good support in the forms of Sophie Marceau, Brendan Gleeson and an excellent Patrick McGoohan as Longshanks. Ironically Angus MacFayden as one of the few main Scots in the film is quite poor as Robert The Bruce, never truly convincing in his switching of allegiances.
James Horner's score suffers from being rehashed later on for Titanic, they are very similar and I couldn't listen to it without thinking of the other film so that is never good.
The other main problem with the film is that it is never able to top the scene of The Battle of Stirling Bridge, yet no bridge to be found during that scene.
Itself, the scene is one of the best battle scenes ever filmed in my opinion. Brutal and bloody, this is fight scene filled with passion. How they managed to create this without killing anyone or any horses I'll never know (apparently they used fake ones but you are a better man than me if you can spot them).
It is the moment that Scotland truly gets behind Wallace and creates the legend, but it is so overwhelming that nothing that follows can top it for spectacle so it leaves a bit of a void that cannot be filled, even by Wallace's martyrdom at the end.
Days remaining - 178 Films remaining - 229
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