Vercingetorix (2001) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Vercingetorix, aka Druids, is a movie about Caesar's Gallic Wars, told from the POV of the Gauls. It was filmed in Bulgaria, with possibly the largest cast of all time, and some good performers. In addition, it maintains a semblance of historical accuracy and it looks good. So is it a good movie?

Hell no.

Unfortunately, all the performers are miscast, the dialogue seems to have been written by ten year olds, and it's boring. (It is in many ways too eager to paint the tiny nuts and bolts of military and political strategies that might have been left in broad brush strokes.) 

NUDITY REPORT
anonymous topless chicks distract the Romans while the warriors attack from the rear.
But it does have Klaus Maria Brandauer as Julius Caesar. No wonder he could deal with the Teutons so easily. He spoke their language. Well, to be more precise, he spoke English with the same accent they had. "Da Gauls vill follow my ordas, und dey vill LIKE it!" Klaus apparently thought he was auditioning to play Franz Liebkind in the Broadway revival of The Producers, and the director said "here, put on this Caesar costume for a minute, will ya? It's a new scene we've added. Franz is crazy, and thinks he's Caesar."

Caesar's mortal enemy, the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix, was played by Christopher Lambert, wearing enough hair to get him into an 80's hair band. While Brandauer was auditioning for The Producers, Lambert seemed to be auditioning for Joe Dirt 2, or perhaps for a live action version of Woody Woodpecker.

Meanwhile, Max von Sydow thought he was in Excalibur, playing Merlin, and he lived in a cave where it snowed 24/7, as if he were inside one of those snow-globe thingies.

DVD info from Amazon.

  • Widescreen anamorphic, 2.35 plus a fullscreen version

  • no meaningful features

The Critics Vote

  • no reviews online

The People Vote ...

  • With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 2.7 
  • With their dollars ... it went straight-to-vid in the USA. It was released theatrically in France, where it took in between two and three million dollars. Apparently all the actors speak French and English, and they filmed two separate versions simultaneously. (The scenes are not dubbed. Apparently they filmed every scene twice.)
IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C-. I didn't like the film at all, but I'm guessing that, despite the pathetic 2.7 at IMDb, this film is probably watchable for some people who love historical spectaculars. I found it boring in some stretches and unintentionally funny elsewhere. 

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