Ironclad

IRONCLAD (2011) - Jan. 24, 2012
A disappointing film about a group of soldiers who try to protect a castle from an evil king.  Though Jonathan English's direction was fine most of the time, he is absolutely terrible at action -- he mostly falls back on quick-cut/shaky-cam laziness, resulting in muddled, unexciting action.  The characters were mostly pretty good, though James Purefoy was oddly bland in the lead role (Purefoy can be an extremely engaging screen presence, so I blame the director on that one).  Brian Cox and Paul Giamatti are clear highlights -- Giamatti, in particular, is clearly having a lot of fun playing a scenery-chewing villain (there's one scene in particular, where he angrily explains why he has the right to be king, that is flat-out awesome and almost makes the whole film worthwhile).  **