Black Death (2011)

Best movie ever!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This movie is first and foremost, as others stated, gritty. There is so much grit, that it goes beyond historical realism and into the realm of horror right from the start. One thing to think about was that while the plague was horrible, it most certainly wasn't all death all the time everywhere interspersed with the occasional witch-hunt, because then with a lot of people dead, the survivors would have all died because there would have been no one to grow, sell, transport and store food. Yet this movie focuses exclusively on the worst things possible. It could aptly be summarized as "14th century: Worst-of".This includes the characters. While the characters are certainly all possible, believable, multi faceted, and well acted, they are all awful people and do not represent anyone apart from themselves (which many reviewers seem to have missed). This is not an exploration of the nature of religion, this is a character piece about a few of the worst people in an already awful time. As such, the events were treated objectively. There was visible effort not to depict the christians as one dimensional power hungry zealots, and the pagans not as simply evil people who do nothing but awful things simply because they hate religion. Nonetheless they all ended up doing awful things.And this is where the movie starts earning negative points, because doing so (while plausible) is simply moronic. The people of the village have no reason for cruelty, and the sole moment of legitimate interest with the revelation about the supposed necromancy is strongly overshadowed by the massive amounts of gratuitous violence directly before and after. This is stupidity way beyond what can be explained by cliché medieval ignorance. It makes no sense for the pagans to immediately turn to what is essentially satanism, and it makes no sense for the squad to want to make them suffer just because they are without god before they realize this. That was not their mission. Hanging the new convert also makes no sense. Least of all sense can be seen in the killing of the girl, when a few questions would definitely not have hurt and could have cleared up the situation.Finally the character development that occurs beyond this is strictly nonsensical. Having killed someone in error resulting in murdering innocent people and becoming the antithesis of your former self is not a very likely thing to happen. This ending also just felt unnecessary and jarring, just to depress the audience more for no reason. I do not appreciate that.Altogether a movie which is a statistically unlikely collection of quite possibly the worst people in the worst time of history, without a real point, except that being evil is bad.

What an utterly useless and boring movie this is. It is basically 90 minutes of blatant disgust, brutality, and violence without any sense and meaning. The plot is paper thin, the characters basically non- existent. The ending is as boring and depressing as the rest of the movie. Save your time and money and spend it on something more worthy than this rubbish. Could see that the movie got state funding, yet another questionable investment of tax payers' money into a 'cultural' project. Eddy Redmayne was the only glimpse of light in this terrible assembly. His performance outshone every other. But there are surely better movies to watch him in. This film is just awful.

(56%) A worthy for most cinema fans smallish produced period drama/horror that's perfectly well made, nicely shot, with a cast of quite big name stars. The plot is pretty basic stuff focused mainly around Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne playing a young monk in training, escorted by the perfectly cast Sean Bean to uncover the a mysterious village lead by the great Tim McInnerny. The plot heats up very nicely once the Christian and Pagan worlds collide, as this switches gear from action adventure into horror. Above all else this is an interesting sit that offers more than just plain and simple 14th century set blood and gore.

Really really wanted to like this movie, and assumed I would. It has all the elements to make it an awesome movie to my taste - Sean Bean in medieval garb, looking and being a bad-ass (though he at no point says the word 'Bastard - a real let-down!); a little bit of the mysteries and God vs. Pagan religion argument as seen from the Middle Ages' experience; and a nice healthy dollop of blood, gore and excruciatingly painful death.However, the story itself plunged so quickly in at the deep end, and the characters we were swiftly introduced to were given so little time for real depth, that I found it very hard to find my empathy for them. Eddie Redmayne's character came across as whiny, where I'm sure I should be feeling greatly sorry for him. Sean Bean's Ulric was a little too ruthless, and the other soldiers in their troupe weren't that knowable, so by the time we get to the village, I really don't feel I have a side. In fact, to see Lord Percy - sorry - Tim McInnerny turn up, I almost felt like I should be on his.Overall, it was a nice watch. I liked the story, but it all took place so fast, I wanted more time to get to know the knights under Ulric, and the person I felt most sorry for was Averill.I wasn't sure I quite liked the ruthlessness of the pagans either - sure, it's a Kill or Be Killed situation overall, but still, the amount of times I've seen bloodthirsty, bedevilled, brainwashed pagans (speaking as a modern pagan myself) is beginning to wear more than a little thin.I'm also pretty sure that Carice Van Houten got cast as Melisandre on these merits.The story arc is good, just too short. The script has a nice, authentic flavour to it, with some nice little twists, and the acting is consistent and engaging throughout - but without a real feeling for who to root for and exactly why, I'm not this film's biggest fan, I regret to say.