Is DRUIDS really a candidate for worst movie ever, as some reviewers declare? I don't think so. However, this French film, about ancient French history, does NOT follow the current mold for Hollywood epics; that is to say, it does not pander to an appetite for overblown action and bombast, and it does not feature a self-pitying, masochistic, macho hero-loser (suitable for casting Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe). To be sure, the zenlike attitude of the hero Vercingetorix is often obscure; but that is the point of the movie. More firmly grounded is the character of Julius Caesar, portrayed more intriguingly here than in almost any other movie; he is urbane, charming, and as deadly as an asp. Diametrical opposites, both men believe themselves to be at the mercy of something they call Destiny. One loses the war, and one wins it, but in the end, they share the same fate. Such fatalism is entirely alien to American movies, and probably hard for many viewers to swallow.
So, DRUIDS offends action/fantasy fans, and it may also disappoint hardcore history buffs, because of the liberties it takes with the details of Caesar's war against the Gauls. (However, the scene with bare-breasted women taunting and distracting the Roman soldiers is actually based on history.) The arch-Druid, played by Max von Sydow, is cryptic to a fault; Lambert is too old to play the hero in the early part of the action. But the film's faults are largely redeemed by its cosmic view, signaled by the comet that traverses space at the beginning of the movie and the matching pull-away into space at the film's end. The questions the movie raises about passive resistance in the face of aggressive war-mongering are both timely and timeless.
So, DRUIDS offends action/fantasy fans, and it may also disappoint hardcore history buffs, because of the liberties it takes with the details of Caesar's war against the Gauls. (However, the scene with bare-breasted women taunting and distracting the Roman soldiers is actually based on history.) The arch-Druid, played by Max von Sydow, is cryptic to a fault; Lambert is too old to play the hero in the early part of the action. But the film's faults are largely redeemed by its cosmic view, signaled by the comet that traverses space at the beginning of the movie and the matching pull-away into space at the film's end. The questions the movie raises about passive resistance in the face of aggressive war-mongering are both timely and timeless.