Mel versus history

Rating: 6/10 (12 September 2008)

Why is Braveheart regarded as a great movie? It's a serious question.
I'll grant the soundtrack is fine - probably the last effective work by the now increasingly insufferable James Horner.
Aside for that, Braveheart belongs with Gladiator and Titanic to the Hall of Fame of "Bafflingly popular, but nothing special" pseudo-historical movies (and I'd argue it's the weakest among those three).
So, why is this great? Characters? Set-pieces?
The human drama is laughable. Director Mel Gibson and writer Randall Wallace never met a cliché they didn't like. The true historical events would be interesting enough without spicing them up with nonsense; see the fictional romance between Wallace and princess Isabella, something so mawkish it would make a soap-opera writer blush with shame (note that the real Isabella was about ten years old when Wallace died).
Characters are painted in broad strokes: Wallace = flawless hero, giving Gibson the chance to play the umpteenth messianic figure of his career; Edward Longshanks = Satan, with Patrick McGoohan having a blast as the moustache-twirling villain; Isabella = romantic princess yearning for real love, so lovely Marceau can make puppy eyes at Gibson and have ludicrous "Oooh, he looks so hot!" chats with her handmaiden. The only one who is given some depth is Robert Bruce, allowing Angus Macfayden to walk away with the movie.
Other low points include the racism inherent in making every British character a sneering monster and the odiously homophobic portrayal of Edward II - who was just a little boy at the time - as an effete, mean-spirited buffoon (think how the murder of his lover is played for laughs!).
Battle scenes, while featuring a certain visceral intensity, are not great. There is no sense of complex tactics or spatial relationships; Gibson's notion of medieval warfare seems to be "people running and screaming". Incidentally, swords are MELEE WEAPONS. They cannot be thrown at a great distance with a whirling sound to impale an enemy far away... unless you are in some cheap sword and sorcery flick.
The funniest thing about these battles, though, has to be our heroic Scots using both face paint (which was a Celtic practice hundred of years BEFORE) and kilts (invented much LATER). It's the equivalent of a WWII movie with soldiers carrying both medieval armors and iPods. However, while ridiculous, this is a non-issue compared to clichés and paper-thin characters.
Still, this is per se a watchable flick - just don't try to sell it as the next Lawrence of Arabia.
6/10