Baggy Pipes

Rating: Null/10 (19 July 2002)

Spoilers herein.
This was an amazingly successful film, which is a little puzzling. Let's call it the Wolfdancing syndrome. It is overly long and not well paced, it is exceedingly simplistic. Some of the battles are so unbelievable they grate.
But it has a beautiful woman, beautiful scenery, then-novel grittiness, and likeable star, The scots have an appealing attitude, transformed for modern tastes. It is photographed competently and edited expertly. All of its art resides in the Peter Weir tradition of multiple speeds of the camera superimposed on multiple paces in the edits. I guess that's enough to garner tickets and awards. But on seeing this a third time, one notices how thin this scaffold is.
But I suppose it is much better to have a visual awareness and some character in the images than not. Mel is not an intellect, simply an energetic man in show business, but I do give him credit for trying on Hamlet and here working on a visual awareness. The two attempts borrow from others but at least have some appeal in their energy.
Ted's Rating -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.