Rousing action, England takes a beating and so does history

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2000)

A very entertaining, well made action film but history is out the door form the beginning: "They're saying good-bye their own way, playing forbidden music on forbidden instruments" to the end: The princess telling her dying father-in-law, the king, that she is pregnant with Wallace's child. Actually bagpipes were unknown to the Scots before their introduction by the English and were still unknown to the Highlanders in Wallace's time. King Edward died several years after Wallace and for that matter neither did the princess give birth. There are many other such fallacies throughout. The great victory of the Scots over the invading English was not in "open" battle; the Scottish archers mowed the English troops down as they attempted to cross a narrow river ford on the way to Stirling castle. The Scots never wore blue face paint. That was a practice of the pre-Gaelic Picts who were recorded by the Romans as doing that. Wallace's army never conquered York. The largest English city they took was Carlisle, just 30 miles south of the border.