This film will be watched a thousand years from now...

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2001)

Braveheart will be watched a thousand years from now because it exploits the power that film as a medium possesses. It does this in the two ways that are most unique and powerful to film: Visually and emotionally. Emotionally, it brings us firsthand into the human experience. Braveheart gives us a sampling of all of the most powerful human emotions most of us experience over a lifetime: love, fighting for what we believe in, family, loss, betrayal, sacrifice, and revenge to name just a few. It takes a lifetime of emotions and feeds them to us in a few hours. It also shows how very two sided man can be. Wallace, (Mel Gibson), is both caring and loving, while at the same time being capable of horrifically killing and maiming his fellow man... a "murdering savage", (a line from the film, I think.) In addition to all of this, it is set to beautiful surroundings, and the battle scenes make great use of cinematic techniques. Notice there is no weird film special effects, such as we are seeing overused in too many modern films.. (traffic, etc). No digital "soft looking" effects.... Just great plain old filmmaking.