It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Instant Favorite.

Film Perfection

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There is not much to say about this tedious film. The production values are all there: it is well shot and the battles scenes are well managed – but there is little else to this film. The cast is competent, and we now have to have a fierce and beautiful young woman in these stories; an essential ingredient these days. The film's greatest weakness, in fact the great error in the production, is the excessive use of slow motion. It is self indulgent and infuriating; all because the director wanted to make it all seem so meaningful, when all it did was make it so dull. Of course, it may have been that he wanted to turn a 60 minute film into a longer one. The motivation is unclear.

It makes no sense to me that this movie has such a low average rating on IMDb. The cinematography is excellent, the direction is good and the acting is fine. There is never a dull moment from beginning to end. The fight choreography is very good, and the costumes are realistic and accurate for the time in history.The hero's love interest played by Annabelle Wallis is very beautiful and is the ideal person to play her character, and Stanley Weber was likewise perfect for his role as the Shadow Walker.I highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes historical action dramas. It's not overly long, and it's entertaining throughout.From http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/normans/invasion_threat_01.shtm l "To prevent future raids and crush internal resistance, William I adopted a 'scorched earth' policy known as the 'harrowing of the north', and castles appeared throughout England to garrison a resident military force."

It starts off slow and moves on at the same pace throughout. After 10 minutes, I realized that it wasn't going to speed up.But that's OK, because this movie is about the hero. He is, quite literally, all that matters. The hero is right out of feudal Japan, with his honor-bound "only vengeance matters" ethics, and his short clipped way of speaking with an accent that doesn't belong in Scotland. His fighting style is completely out of place and would be laughably ineffective in real life. Good thing he learned to hold his sword backwards, otherwise he'd have killed all the baddies twice as fast and the movie might have been tempted to run at a normal pace..No other characters matter. There is a "love interest" that doesn't really make any deep connection and only exists to give the hero exactly ONE dynamic character lesson, a trio of bad guys that have exactly ONE motive each, and a plethora of other characters that might as well be nameless as they don't do much else except perform all the basic necessary menial tasks involved in making a hero look heroic without trying too hard.There is no accuracy in terms of dress, speech, military action, governmental oversight, etc. These things don't matter, only the hero matters. He looks cool and is a total awesome dude. The movie has to rock because the hero does. Right? In addition, it was filmed in the "bleak style" that is so prevalent among stylized films. This means they removed most of the color. I have never understood this particular method of filming. Can the world not be bleak in its own right? And lastly, the soundtrack spends most of its time being out of place. Sometimes it sounds like something out of a sci-fi film (mostly when the hero is spinning his sword around, complete with whirly sound effects), sometimes it sounds like moody atmospheric mush (mostly when the hero is looking stoic and heroic), and usually moves itself into the typical drum-heavy orchestral epic sounding stuff (mostly when the hero is killing lots of people while holding his sword backwards). There is no reference, or even an implied reference, to any sort of traditional gaelic or celtic musical form, melody or instrument.This is getting long, so I'll cut it off here with a final comment:This movie is so empty of substance that it's like a skeleton of ideas that are designed to be easily fit into any genre. Take this hero and stick him into a sci-fi feature battling the evil space barons that killed his family. You don't even have to change the soundtrack. Next throw it all into a pirate feature. It will work just fine, just need to tweak the costumes a little bit.This movie is bland and devoid of any real character. Very forgettable.

Sword of Vengeance relies in large part on impressive visual elements to carry the film. That is not, however, necessarily a bad thing. The director utilizes chiaroscuro, a technique that utilizes strong contrasts between light and dark throughout Sword of Vengeance. The result is a film imbued with a dark, menacing and rather stark feel. This aptly reflects post 1066 Britain. A world of drastic change and no small measure of oppression from the nations new rulers, the Normans. Accompanying the strong visuals is a well synced, if at times annoying, electronic sound track.It suits the film but its intentionally jarring qualities are at times over stated. What is by contrast, not well emphasized is the story line. The story is kept vague, I suspect quite intentionally, to reflect a lone stranger, action flick, reminiscent of the lone cowboy genre that Clint Eastwood is famous for. The main character is mysterious, brooding type who remains mostly, silent, throughout the film. Indeed, there is not a lot of dialogue from any of the cast which actually works in this films favour. Its action driven and you get to know the characters, as the old saying goes, by their actions not their words. The fight scenes that are found throughout this title, are well choreographed with a feral, bloody quality. Certainly, this is not a film for the squeamish. In summary Sword of Vengeance is a well rounded action film. Visuals aside its arguably very forgettable but at the same time its manages something that is quite difficult. A film that heavily exploits visual elements in place of dialogue and still succeeds in engaging the viewer. Seven out of ten from me.