Watching Medieval, the new period battle-epic from director Petr Jákl, it's hard not to be struck by how neatly it slots into its commercial niche. There is an audience for historical action-adventure movies that see hardened warriors go at it with old-fashioned weaponry, an audience that tolerates a certain level of gory effects, tactical jargon, and broody pensiveness from a male lead. This genre has a sliding scale of prestige, depending on the budget level and stars involved, with many on the upper-end aspiring to the Oscars glory of movies like Braveheart and Gladiator. Medieval sits somewhere in the middle and has no such aspirations, but the latter Ridley Scott film still feels like a clear touchstone, encouraging a comparison that does not prove flattering. Already working with a shakily thin script, Jákl weighs his movie down with an overly self-serious aesthetic, to the point that even the target audience might find the two-hour runtime a tough sit.
Based on the story of real-life Czech national hero and military legend Jan Žižka, played here by Ben Foster, Medieval opens with Europe on the precipice of chaos following the death of the Holy Roman Emperor. Only the Pope can crown a new one, and while the French play for power by electing their own Pope, Žižka and his employer, Lord Boresh (Michael Caine), are working to secure their benevolent King Wenceslaus of Bohemia (Karel Roden) safe passage to Rome for this purpose. However, they face fierce opposition from Lord Rosenberg (Til Schweiger), a wealthy noble with his eye on the Bohemian crown, and Hungary's King Sigismund (Matthew Goode), Wenceslaus' scheming half-brother whose target is the entire Empire. Rosenberg is withholding the funds required for the King's journey, and Boresh has Žižka's team kidnap his fiancée, Lady Catherine (Sophie Lowe) — who also happens to be the niece of the King of France — in the hopes of motivating him. But things soon go awry when Sigismund and his men get involved, and Žižka begins to develop feelings for his naive but goodhearted captive.
With its various moving pieces and Catherine as the political pawn everyone wants but no one can afford to endanger, Medieval had the chance to pair its action set-pieces with some quality intrigue. Unfortunately, it relies too heavily on exposition to establish motivations and alliances, content to tell viewers each character's goal and let that define them, instead of showing viewers who they are and developing their motivations from there. This pretty much leaves it up to the actors to project depth into their roles, and even with the talent on board, their success seems directly related to the amount of screen time they receive. Goode, for example, excels at being opaquely sinister, but as the Sigismund scenes pile up, it becomes clear the film has no intention of peeling back what layers there appear to be in his performance. The two leads, Žižka and Catherine, get a bit more attention from the script, in that they are actually afforded some backstory. But their core characteristics are established with the same repetition, and while they are granted actual arcs, their growth is painfully slow. Neither is strong enough to serve as Medieval's emotional anchor, nor does their romantic potential ever provide the necessary spark.
On top of these script issues, Jákl crafts his film with grating self-importance. From an opening voiceover that starts by listing action-movie buzzwords to the oppressively bleak visual style throughout, Medieval seems to constantly tell its viewer how seriously they should take it, despite lacking the goods to justify such attention. That kind of stylization can work when employed to serve a larger artistic purpose, demonstrated well this year by Robert Eggers' The Northman, but this movie has no such intent. If the lodestar really is Gladiator, then Jákl has forgotten that movie's use of beauty to balance its horrors — the most enduring image, after all, is a hand drifting over a field of wheat. Lacking either The Northman's unified sense of vision or Gladiator's quality compositions, the dour Medieval can only crumple under its own weight.
This movie's only real interest is its violence, and while some battle scenes provide bright spots, this aspect, too, fails to deliver on its full potential. Medieval makes use of a wide array of weapons to dispatch its characters, and there is some very strong effects work that this movie's audience will surely appreciate. Additionally, there's a whole sequence partway through that puts Žižka's most famous military tactic to good use, and the movie is never more engaging than when each stage of his plan is gradually unveiled. However, some choppy editing makes it difficult to really take in the fight choreography and the battles suffer from a lack of stakes. It's not because they hold back on the death and maiming, but because the general lack of investment in characters leaves the viewer indifferent to whether they end up dead or maimed. Unlike movies that are a push-and-pull of positive and negative traits, Medieval's issues compound, undercutting what assets it does have and leaving little reason to recommend it.
Medieval released exclusively in theaters on Friday, September 9. The film is 126 minutes long and is rated R for strong and grisly violent content throughout, and some nudity.