A good battle epic.

Rating: 8/10 (1 August 2010)

Braveheart is the story of William Wallace and his vengeance of a love one, uniting of the Scots against the English in the fight for vengeance and freedom. The acting is good all around, but the antagonists of the film are played too much as evil English stereotypes. The heroes, Wallace and his band of Scottish warriors, you cheer for, in spite of the brutality, but I can't help feel at least a bit of manipulation that pulls me in that direction.
The best part of the movie is the battles. They are brutal, graphic, and believable. Braveheart isn't something you'll want to get a history lesson from though. It sells the story well enough, but after researching on the internet the history is apparently quite bad even by Hollywood standards. Still the bad history does nothing to diminish the effect of the amazing battle scenes that hold up superbly 15 years later.
Braveheart can't be mentioned in the same breath as Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur, or Gone With the Wind, as masterpieces of epic storytelling. What it is is a bloody, rousing, entertaining, exciting, and romantically delightful film. Nothing more and nothing less. No it did not deserve to win Best Picture, but hey it's 3 Hours that are never dull, and that are sometimes rather impressive.