Ironclad 2: Battle for Blood (2014)

Great Film overall

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I was one of the few people that thought that the first Ironclad was great thanks to a very nice and known cast but this one? this one feels more like a cash grab. Except a famous Game of Thrones star nobody else in this movie is known for something. But like i said it's a dumb fun that nobody asked for the acting is all over the place, the cgi they used was awful but the movie has a lot of brutal kills and action and that is why you should see it it's a dumb action flick that tries to recreate the first movie and it pretty much fails in every way but other than that it was OK. I give Ironclad 2 a 7 out of 10 it was OK nothing more nothing else.

Despite its doubtful historical veracity and not being highly memorable, I found Ironclad an entertaining medieval action film. The sequel, Ironclad: Battle for Blood, tried to repeat the formula, but the result is a poor movie, because of its weak screenplay, bad performances and insipid direction. There are various bloody battle sequences in this film, but the abuse of the hand-held camera ends up ruining them and becoming them a parade of incomprehensible images with cuts every half a second which avoid the spectator to follow the flow of the action. The actors feel totally feigned and not credible at all in their roles, and the screenplay is uninteresting and full of clichés. On the positive side, the landscapes and castles in which Ironclad: Battle for Blood was shot are truly impressive. Nevertheless, that wasn't enough to rescue this film, and I can't recommend it, because it bored me pretty much.

I finished it. Not without fast forwarding through on my sky box on a few parts but I finished it. I never reviewed a film before but this was the straw that broke the camels back - I knew I had to save innocents from this abhorrent time sink.It was a cold December 27th night that I saw this film coming on to Sky Premier a little later than I wanted to stay up, ergo I slapped it with a record and went peacefully to my bed. Come the afternoon of the following day I got a drink and sat down. I pressed play. Fool on me.The film follows the typical savage Scots attacking the English lords in their keep. It doesn't particularly elaborate as to why except that the chieftain has suffered the loss of his family at the hands of SOME English. As such, he wants to kill all the English. Sounds legit. So begins an extensive siege that claims all but 4 lives in the end.The acting wasn't bad. Don't misunderstand my 4/10, the acting wasn't bad at all. Nor was the setting. The fortress castle and the landscape were good and the script wasn't bad either ... at least for the English. Medevil England is a great historical period and worthy of films. This didn't do it justice.The plot? The plot in itself was direly lacking any real direction outside of several characters developing. It was so similar to every other film of the period, and consisted of a small force assaulting a very small but fortified force; thats fine. Epic battles don't need to have thousands of people. Unfortunately for more than 100 minutes of time you get little reward from this film, seemingly made with the idea of 'lets get some actors from other things like Game of Thrones and have them play in this'. It's a film you look at and think "they must have made this over 2-3 evenings for a quick cash cow" because thats what it is. Unimaginative. Uninspiring. Boring and dull. You don't know if some characters will live and die; frankly you don't care. You know it's like most films like this where 2-5 people survive but you don't care who.If you want to know if this is worth a watch then it depends how valuable your time is. If the alternative is sitting still staring into space then this film is for you! If you like taking walks or head butting a wall then your time is better spent on those things - they're more fulfilling!

I only remember that I liked the prequel, the previous film, back in 2011, except the ending for silly audiences. This film brings no more to the original, nothing at all. OK, it is full of bloody action, brutal sequences, for which I won't say they are gratuitous as far as the director claimed that he wanted a very realistic medieval film in the line of THE VIKINGS, WAR LORD, etc...But bloodbaths don't make everything. Besides that, the plot is more than familiar, no surprise at all, unlike WAR LORD, where for instance Charlton Heston's character was ambivalent at the most, and the poor peasant - he stole the wife from because the wedding and the lord's right of f...the bride - very interesting as the "bad guy" of the film...Yes, Franklin Schaffner's masterpiece was far far better than this one. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSHere, good dudes kill the evil ones in the end. Period. Not a waste of time, but you can live without it.