Great movie - no but it is worth watching

Rating: 8/10 (6 July 2014)

Spoiler Alert- Turks take Constantinople.
Beard vs. Beard; many steely glances; the movie-phone guy doing the voice-over narration; and the most over the top heroic death scene this side of Tae Guk Gi, yes this movie has a lot of flaws. But surprise surprise, this movie is rather enjoyable. A good amount of the flaws could be solved by better narration and subtitles, so I decided not to gig it for that. The overly heroic style actually has a kind of charm to it. They swung for the fences on the action, and mostly succeeded, better than a great many over-bloated Hollywood movies. Most of all I liked the characters, Hollywood should recruit some of these actors.
Some of the reviews complain about the Turks being the heroes, which I scratch my head at, seeing that it is a Turkish movie about the defining moment of the Ottoman Empire, of course they are the heroes. Indeed there is a whole lot of whining about historical accuracy, from people who don't seem to realize that this is a movie and judging from their comments, could use a great deal of historical lessons themselves. Other than it being the kindest, most fuzziest sacking of a city in all of history, the rest of the historical account was not that far off. Of course the Ottomans could be extremely cruel, so could the Byzantines, and definitely the Crusaders also. If the movie was merely a history lesson, it could have also shown the Cruaders sacking Constantinople, instead of merely a few villages, and ultimately being responsible for the fall of the Byzantine Empire. But it's a movie, and one that they tried to ratchet up the dramatic tension, at expense to a few facts such as the size of the Byzantine army. As the actual taking of the city was rather difficult I can forgive the dramatic license. You just have to take the movie for what it is. A movie about the dawn of a new and bright civilization, and which for good or bad, glosses over many of the injustices committed by both sides.
Mehmed the Great was the quintessential Ottoman, not somebody to defy, but he was also tolerant and a great believer in law, and established a pattern of affording more religious freedoms to conquered peoples than any other empire in history. Istanbul flourished for centuries after the capture and remains one the greatest cities in the world. It wouldn't hurt if a few more Westerner's learned even a glossed over history of him.
It's not a great movie, but it could have been, and I liked it and if you like historical actioners, you should check it out too.