The poster boy for "movies that haven't aged well"

Rating: 7/10 (24 October 2018)

I was in my early 20's when I had the chance to see Mel Gibson's Braveheart on the big screen, sadly along with a classroom of young giggling girls behind my seat. I still remember what a huge experience it was on first viewing, full of excitement, great scenery, incomparable battle scenes, and wonderful dialogue with a very memorable scene after scene every minute. The story of a commoner who rebelled against a huge kingdom when his secret bride is murdered was, in one word, majestic.
Years later, however, most of these views changed. First, the Internet came into our homes, and as I did a bit of reading about history, I began to realize the mind-numbing historical inaccuracies that Braveheart has. Now I don't mind altering history a bit in movies for the sake of entertainment, but certainly not to this extent. Braveheart, in fact, is not an historic film at all: It uses names, characters and events from history, but rearranges them to fit its story. In fact, it's not too different from Tarantino's excellent Inglorious Basterds in that aspect.
Second, DVDs came into our homes, and upon a couple of repeated viewings, those "incomparable" battle scenes turned out to be somewhat ordinary, then bad, then straight up laughable. Full of unforgivable editing mistakes, continuity mistakes, background actors playing sword among themselves like children... I'm not talking about ordinary movie goofs that you can find even in Kubrick's films if you try hard, I'm talking about mistakes that could be avoided if you simply took a bit of care.
I still gave it a solid 7 stars, though. Because despite all its flaws, Braveheart is still a damn entertaining movie. While making every possible mistake a first-time director could make, Gibson also managed to pull off something very difficult: make a thoroughly engaging, entertaining film. It's fun, it has a once-in-a-lifetime score, and despite its appalling flaws, it's still an unforgettable movie.
Final word: Although Gibson directed, produced and starred in this, making it "his baby" so to speak, for me it will always be Patrick McGoohan's movie. He's more of a king than some actual kings. A very fine actor giving a chilling performance, stealing every scene.