The film could have been good. When you find an epic film produced in Spain, you expect it to be lacking in production design. You'd be wrong. This film looks grand and excellent, with action scenes that can rival Hollywoods and sets that will blow your mind away. But it tries to cover 6 books in 2½ hours! The result, as you can imagine, is a lot of incomprehensible jumps.
If you're interested in history, it is worth a look but otherwise you might as well skip it. They should have adapted 1 or 2 novels. Not all 3. The result is that none of the characters get any depth and except for Alatriste, no characters are that frequent. Not even his comrades or his lover get that many scenes and they are spread out across the film.
Very little is explained. The best example of this is the transition from a scene where Alatriste helps his young apprentice up from a shore to the final battle. Just like that, with no explanation, we're thrown into a battle in Flanders between France and Spain.
I very much enjoyed the action scenes however. Very well made. The film was also very gritty and brutal. A testament to this is how many people in this film are stabbed in the throat, or across it. A knife is an effective weapon that can quickly kill a man in a most undramatic way, but it is hard to portray this effectively on film. But here, the filmmakers do not try to glorify their action. They just show it as it could have happened in real life.
If you're interested in history, it is worth a look but otherwise you might as well skip it. They should have adapted 1 or 2 novels. Not all 3. The result is that none of the characters get any depth and except for Alatriste, no characters are that frequent. Not even his comrades or his lover get that many scenes and they are spread out across the film.
Very little is explained. The best example of this is the transition from a scene where Alatriste helps his young apprentice up from a shore to the final battle. Just like that, with no explanation, we're thrown into a battle in Flanders between France and Spain.
I very much enjoyed the action scenes however. Very well made. The film was also very gritty and brutal. A testament to this is how many people in this film are stabbed in the throat, or across it. A knife is an effective weapon that can quickly kill a man in a most undramatic way, but it is hard to portray this effectively on film. But here, the filmmakers do not try to glorify their action. They just show it as it could have happened in real life.