Tristan & Isolde (the film)
Nice battle scenes and costumes, but poor entertainment from director Kevin Reynolds.
Period films are nothing new in the history of film, neither is romance, royalty nor knights. It is familiar ground for director Kevin Reynolds as well; his most famous period film is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves from 1991 with Kevin Costner in the title role. And in 2001 he made The Count of Monte Cristo.
Tristan & Isolde (film)
British 2006
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Director of photography: Arthur Reinhart
Music: Anne Dudley
Actors: James Franco (Tristan), Sophia Myles (Isolde),
Rufus Sewell (King Marke), David O'Hara (Donnchadh), Marc Strong (Wictred),
Henry Cavill (Melot), Bronagh Gallagher (Bragnae), Graham Mullins (Morholt)
This time his attention is towards Tristan & Isolde, a project Blade Runner director Ridley Scott has wanted to do for almost 30 years, but now he has brought the money in and he is the producer of the film.
The story takes place in the Dark Ages and the conflict between Ireland and a divided England after the fall of the Roman Empire. As the reader will understand, the two young lovers do not belong to the same tribe.
The film is a bit confusing in its introduction to the story and the conflict, but nice scenery and lots of historic surroundings compensate a bit for that. Surprisingly the passion between Tristan and Isolde is quite tame, the tension between Sophia Myles and James Franco is almost absent, and that’s the main reason why the film does not grip you at all. Combined with lack of mysticism, magic and youthful joy it is not much to entertain you.
The other actors miss direction as well, and look like they are in
a TV-drama. It has to be said though that some of the small
parts have excellent
actors. The music doesn’t do much for the story either, you hardly
notice it and when you notice it you think you hear something from Secret
Garden.
Is it all doom and gloom? Well, the best is the costumes, which is probably not 100% correct, but it looks good, and the battle scenes are also fine. They are effective and not blurry, even if they are grey and muddy.
You should have very much time to kill to bother to see this film.
Tristan & Isolde
(the film) on Amazon- Tristan and Isolde on IMDB.com
- Tristan und Isolde (by Richard Wagner) on DVD
Other Wagner related reviews
Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang's movie)