A great piece of narrative cinema

Rating: 9/10 (12 November 2019)

It is baffling to me that this film is receiving so much legitimate rancor for being historically inaccurate. I would think that anyone with a functioning brain would realize that this is narrative cinema and not a documentary feature film. If you want to learn the true history, take advantage of the existence of the totally real and separate genre of documentaries. It's utterly ridiculous that these stuck-up know-it-all amateur "historians" think that the director/script writer/etc. didn't do any research. The wikipedia page for the Battle of Agincourt or even King Henry V will give an accurate account of events; it's not exactly valuable, hidden knowledge that they seem to bandy it as being. I don't see anyone dumping on Shakespeare for writing a dramatization. The fact is, this is a story about The King, and this holier than thou contrarianism has no place in judging this film.
To start, it's a great Netflix movie. In the vein of Outlaw King, the film does a good job of immersing the viewer in the setting. The acting was solid all around, and the musical score, while not particularly memorable, had its moments. The set pieces are good, and the props are even better. True armor-buffs will no doubt have something to say about the historical accuracy of the costuming, but the performance put on by the actors in these seemingly real sets of armor was very convincing. Above all, this movie gave us something that other media has repeatedly failed to give us: convincing armored combat. Gone are the wild swings of longswords somehow cleaving through a breastplate. Instead we finally get the good old grappling and knife fighting skills that proved to be so useful on the battlefield. The fights were a joy to watch for this reason. As for the plot; it's solid. Some moments approached melodrama, but all good stories should be a little over the top, or they wouldn't be worth telling.
It may not be a true to life version of events surrounding Agincourt and Henry V, but the history is interesting to study, but not necessarily fun to tell your mates about. What we got here was a good story.