If you have to see it, wait for tape.

Rating: Null/10 (30 June 2000)

For a start, the movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes long. I don't object to such length with good movies, this was not a good movie however. I spent the last 40 minutes checking my watch and waiting for the inevitable climactic battle between Gibson and the bad guy. The plot is buried with extraneous and uninteresting sub-plots that illustrate the horror of war, but serve no other purpose (such as furthering the plot, which is what they should be doing.)
The battle scenes involving Gibson were all so overdone I found myself giggling while he slaughtered men and got his nice shirt all dirty. It seems it is very easy to kill hundreds, but Gibson just won't go down! (Maybe the British had problems with their guns when aimed at Australians?)
The romance angle was taped on with scotch tape, acting as merely the obligatory love scenes and offering nothing by way of plot. Instead of plot the audience was treated with awkward looking men and women smiling at each other before falling blissfully in love.
And of course Gibson's character owns a plantation where all the black people working on it are happy freed men. See! He's a *nice guy*.
The movie had some redeeming qualities, but not enough.