Historical epics have had a rough time of it of late. Ever since Ridley Scott camped Gladiator in the Oscar winner�s parking lot there�s been nothing but disappointment and outright failure. Scott�s 2005 follow-up, Kingdom of Heaven, whilst surprisingly enjoyable and well-made, was given short shrift critically and barely made back a third of its budget in the US. Oliver Stone�s Alexander was savaged and flopped utterly (and deservedly), and the excellent-if-formulaic King Arthur also barely made its $90million dollar budget back.
The irony of this of course is that at the time of Gladiator�s release the entire world was dying for more sword-and-sandals epics, with the accompanying huge battle scenes, doomed love affairs and stoic leading men. Then September 11th happened and the world became immediately sick of the idea of war and death. Now I�m not saying that this is the reason why the genre has totally under-performed over the last 5 years, Alexander really was awful, but it goes someway to explaining why some very good films with immense box office potential have fizzled on their release.
Tristan + Isolde (yes, there really is a plus sign in there) is a movie I didn�t even know had been released, so little marketing was it given. Starring James Franco, who seems to be doing a tidy little job of �headlining� star-less pictures, as Tristan, it picks up where King Arthur left off in a post-Roman world of inter-tribal warfare. After his parents are murdered by the invading Irish, Tristan is brought up by the good King Marke and becomes a powerful warrior. After defeating another Irish invasion he is injured and presumed dead, and so given a Viking funeral. However, he survives, gets washed up on an Irish beach and is tended to by Princess Isolde. They fall in love, he goes back to England, he then goes back to Ireland to win a contest, unwittingly winning her in the bargain, she then has to marry Marke and hilarious misunderstandings ensue.
Well not really, it is after all sold under the banner of being Romeo and Juliet before Romeo and Juliet were Romeo and Juliet, or something, so you know it�s not going to end well. A better comparison though would be to the legends of King Arthur, wherein Arthur marries a younger woman whose heart belongs to his finest knight, thereby setting off a schism in happy Camelot. In fact it�s exactly like that.
Tristan + Isolde isn�t bad, it�s just not very good. Franco is a non-entity of an actor, think Orlando Bloom sans Lord of the Rings success, and makes Tristan look like a rather stupid, pouting child most of the time. Rufus Sewell as Marke fairs much better, imbibing the King with the requisite decency and loyalty to make his eventual betrayal all the more painful, and Sophia Myles is very pretty and does a good English accent. The rest of the cast barely make a dent and there is little effort on director Reynolds part to include them, and even less half-decent acting to make their small roles come alive. In reality Tristan + Isolde did about as well as it deserved, a small theatrical run and a few copies occasionally rented from video stores. |
