Boudica review – dreary take on Norfolk’s killer queen is as gritty as a sponge – The Guardian
Boudica, the Iceni queen who led an rebellion in opposition to the Roman colonisers in first-century Britain, is among the nice feminist icons from historic historical past, however there are surprisingly few cinematic representations of her.
There was a British TV present from 1978 referred to as Warrior Queen that had the nice Siân Phillips daubed in woad, a just-OK movie from 2003 additionally referred to as Warrior Queen that starred Alex Kingston, and a smattering of others in varied languages, largely for TV. And, after all, there’s the totally iconic section in Horrible Histories the place Queen B (Martha Howe-Douglas) sings a grungy ditty about how her bloody marketing campaign. (“Bow man, yeoman, smash the Roman foe man / All say ‘Yah / It’s Boudic-a!’”). However all that also leaves room for an ideal function movie concerning the hardest, most heroic gal to come back out of Norfolk, up there with Edith Cavell and Delia Smith.
Sadly, the emptiness stays after this dreary tackle the killer queen, right here performed by Ukrainian-French actor Olga Kurylenko. Now, some might doubt this, however I’ve seen satisfactory performances from Kurylenko – as an example, as a live performance pianist in The Demise of Stalin. That mentioned, usually she’s higher when talking French or simply standing round trying ornamental. This, sadly, is certainly one of her worst turns, in a job the place all the pieces hinges on the actor taking part in the lead having the ability to challenge majesty and grit.
Kurylenko is about as gritty as a used sponge, and has a skinny, feeble voice that’s particularly unconvincing in scenes the place she’s meant to rally troops with impassioned rhetoric. About midway by way of, there’s a scene the place her character is introduced horrible information of a beloved one’s loss of life. As Kurylenko goes into despairing yowls, the movie turns down the audio and cranks up tragic-sounding music, normally a robust signal that even the film-makers might inform this efficiency was going to persuade nobody, so finest simply smother it in a surge of treacly strings.
Author-director Jesse V Johnson has scant expertise for dialogue both; Horrible Histories had extra gravitas. What Johnson is sweet at – and so he ought to be, given his earlier profession as a stunt performer and coordinator – is choreographing fights and fisticuffs. Though the movie usually appears to be like like a house film shot with half a dozen dwell motion function play devotees messing round in a forest, the thwacking of swords and plunging of knives is a little bit of a hoot. At one level, somebody will get their head lower off and the dismembered visage retains on blinking and gasping with incredulity at this indignity – a sensation viewers of this movie will undoubtedly relate to.
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