Agincourt

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2019)

This turned out to be a pretty impressive movie, but then again, any film about Henry V that happens to have Falstaff in it is going to grab my attention. However, I should point out that this is only based on Shakespeare, this is not a rendition of any of the Shakesperian plays that centre around Henry V. The first thing is that Falstaff, at least in Shakespeare, doesn't go to France with Henry, and secondly the language in this film is somewhat more modern that what one generally gets with Shakespeare.
The main focus of the film is the events that lead up to the battle of Agincourt, though at the beginning we are introduced to Hal as being the hard drinking, carousing, prince that we all know him as from the Henry IV plays. However, Falstaff, while being his good friend, is actually much more level headed, and much less of a buffoon in this film. In fact, as I mentioned, he travels with Henry over to France, as his personal advisor, much to the disdain of many in the court.
There is a lot of political maneuvering in this film, particularly with Henry IV initially disinheriting Hal, but later being forced to accept him as king due to the death of his other son (and his other son basically died due to stupidity). However, a lot of the focus is the preparation, and the invasion, of France. As I mentioned, there is a lot of political maneauverings here, and it appears that the French are actually attempting to goad Henry into action, though it turns out that there is a lot more going on behind the scenes.
One interesting thing in the film is how the battle of Agincourt played out. Look, I'm not entirely sure if the battle was actually filmed at Agincourt, because it certainly didn't look like it, but then again much of where the battle was fought has been turned into fields. Yet, in part it didn't seem like it went on for too long, and it certainly didn't feel as if there was a huge number of soldiers participating either. Personally, maybe that had something to do with budget constraints. Yet, the thing about the muddy ground, and the English using that to their advantage, certainly does add to the realism.
Yeah, this turned out to be pretty cool film, and there was a lot of realism about it as well. It is certainly worth checking out.