[James Cunniffe]

Where do I start with this movie ,well I went to see it, and you know it was not as bad as I was expecting it to be.The story line was not bad but that is not why I went to watch it .I went to see how historically inaccurate the weapons,armor and clothes were in this fictional movie .because this movie was about a crusader and a witch i did not have high expectations but to my surprise they were pretty accurate the armor was well done and the swords they used were great,I would love to know who made them ,I read here that A&A may have had some of there weapons in this movie but I did not see them .For a movie that does not try to be historically correct they did a better job in the weapons than some movies that claim to be historic .The Helms that Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman wore look ridiculous like something out of a video game .If anyone else will admit to have watching this movie I would like to know what you did think of the swords they used and if you know who made them.As a fictional movie i will give it a 8/10, there are a lot of historic truths in this movie too ,the weapons ,the battles,the cloths ,the plague ,the madness of the church dealing with so called witches and the plague. A must see movie, perhaps not ,but if you have nothing else to do and want to watch some sword play and think how you would have made it better then go see it.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Well it was O.K. as a lightweight popcorn movie, the story was a bit thin and contrary to modern expectations of the witch not being a witch because there are no witches and it was only superstition: In this film the supernatural is real and this film is more like a monster or vampire type movie set in the medieval period.

There are some valid comments about fanaticism and the idea of " kill them all, let God sort them out " mentality of killing the Infidel: Evil no matter what religion is doing the killing then or today. ( But lets not get into that too far as it risks getting political and outside the purpose of the Forums i.e. break the rules here ).

The swords I didn't get a long enough or close enough look at to tell who make them but I suspect that there might be some Windlass and or Del Tins among them, but there might be a mix of brands.

The costuming and armour seemed more Hollywood/fantasy than real and some of the more historically correct stuff like Spangenhelms where out of period by 100 to 200 years ( I think the film is some time in the early 14th Century so mostly after the Crusader period. Oh, and the more dirt the more " authentic " mentality of costume designers i.e. 14 th Century must mean 14 mm of dirt on skin and everything else.

I would have to check but the list of battles mentioned in rapid sequence that the two main characters where supposed to have fought in seemed mostly fictional ones but I'm not 100% sure of this.

In any case the big sieges and massacres seem more appropriate for the first to Third Crusades than the period of the film.

The best part is the banter between the two main characters which is fun in general but there where some really bad and corny lines of dialogue also.

I have to admit a degree of guilty pleasure as I enjoyed the film at the time but it's not one I would want to see twice or consider a " classic " worth getting enthusiastic about.

[Lin Robinson]

[Luke Zechman]

WOW this movie is getting a 4% on Rotten Tomatoes... I don't ever remember a film scoring that low.

[Simon G.]

[Michael B.]

I enjoyed the first part of this film, it had a lot of potential I thought. I didn't mind the quips and banter back and forth. The helmets they wore at the beginning bugged me to no end though. I liked their swords, minus the fact the hilts seemed overbuilt. IMO, the last 20 minutes was the most horrible slow motion flaming train wreck of cinema that I've seen in a while. A spectacular display of how not to make an end of a film, they started to lose me with the demon, but when it started to talk like a muppet, it really got me laughing. Dear Nicholas Cage acted his heart out trying to save the film, but there's little that could be done, Ron Pearlman shouldn't smile, it makes children cry, luckily, he can hide it well behind his stubble, his character provided the quips about stupid lines we were making in our heads, a needed comic relief to help keep it afloat.

[Marcos Cantu]

making the witch into a demon type character was a mistake...

[Boris R.]

[Patrick Kelly]

I went into this movie with extremely low expectations, so it was actually better than I'd feared. Really nothing more than the standard quest plot line. In fact, it was so much like a D&D adventure I half expected one of the characters to whip out a pair of twelve sided dice or something. Nick Cage obviously needs the money badly. I did enjoy Ron Perlmans "I'm a knight because the chicks dig it" attitude. Very forgettable but at least I didn't feel two hours closer to being dead when it was over.

[Jean-Carle Hudon]

When Mr Cage came through Montreal working on a 2nd rate boxing movie, he stopped off at one of our ''medieval'' boutiques and bought a mail and plate armor made by Michael Dabek, a Polish armorer established north of Montreal.
I understood from what the proprietor told me that the fellow is a collector of sorts, very much interested in armor and arms from the medieval period... I wish this showed more in that movie.
I think he accepts some things that are thrown at him because of his personnal interests, but ends up giving a performance that comes off as unidimensionnal because of the nature of the material thrown at him... directors love to simplify ''medieval''characters, and forget that human beings are not more complex today than at any other period in history, they just have more bells and whistles to play with.

[Juan Cocinas]

Honestly, the thing that annoyed me most about this film was the crusaders' complete lack of shields I always hope to see some sword&board fight scenes in hollywood pictures, and i am almost always disappointed