OK so we've probably seen most of them time and time again but doesn't it get on your t*ts when they go OTT or are just simply crap. So lets have your favourit crap historical war films of all time: For me Braveheart and Patriot (Is Mel Gibson a common feature here?) better things get flushed down the drain. Over to you....

Haha, I'm not surprised to see Braveheart come up straight away!

It's not a film, but the cannon balls exploding in the Sharpe's series winds me right up.

Anythign with Mel Gibson in it- Anti British - cant stand the moron.....

I'll agree.  Mel Gibson's Patriot and Braveheart films are appauling...and dangerous propaganda actually.

Now then.  Worst historical film?  Difficult to say, but here are a few contenders...

Zulu.  One of the best action/war films ever made, but utterly wrong on almost every point as a historical film.

Gladiator.  Terrible portrayal of the historical aspects of the Roman army, Roman politics and society, and indeed of Gladiators.

Pearl Harbour.  Not just one of the worst historical movies, one of the worst movies ever...full stop.

Savng Private Ryan.  Dreadfully innacurate portrayal of pretty much everything about D-Day and D-Day+.  Not talking about the basic plot of the film here, but all the dressing and peripherals...
That said realism of the protrayal of combat is apparently pretty close.


Which is the worst?  Actually i'll go with any film that reinvents history, so i'll plump for U571.  An absolutely disgraceful example of the reinvention of history WWII which Hollywood movies perpetrate on the world.  

QuoteIt's not a film, but the cannon balls exploding in the Sharpe's series winds me right up.

Yeah me too.  I guess its easier to film a bit of pyrotechnics than a bouncing solid ball of iron.  Plus the effect of those balls would make Sharpe an 18R rated programme eh?
...however, there was explosive shot used in the period as i understand...

Battle of the Bulge -- At least they could have filmed it somewhere with snow and trees!  The snow might have covered the truly awful plot!

Damn beaten to it by a legion of fellow Gibson haters !

The Patriot is shocling , truly truly dismal.

QuoteYeah me too.  I guess its easier to film a bit of pyrotechnics than a bouncing solid ball of iron.  Plus the effect of those balls would make Sharpe an 18R rated programme eh?
...however, there was explosive shot used in the period as i understand

It was shell, basically a hollow ball filled with gunpowder and with a bit of slow fuse sticking out but it was only used by mortars and howitzers, not field artillery.  The British had a version which included musket balls in the shell, the first shrapnel shell.

As for bad films, what about Alexander?

I agree with you all, but don't forget Spartacus. That must get in, if only for the waste of an expert director.

Which one? I quite enjoyed the modern one...

saving Private ryan is as far a steh sight and sound of battle is scarily close, the sound of bullets impacting into bodies( the bit were the Sdkfz 251/1 gets taken out by bazooka and Tom hanks guns down the crew), not to mention the opening sequence. After that its crap.

Most War films are ruined by the Hollywood effect.

I vote for Pearl Harbour, it's definitely one of the worst films I've paid cold hard cash to see. Mangled history meets mawkish romance. How close to historically accurate is it? As Bluto says in Animal House "was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?"

Quote from: dicehead on 24 April 2010, 01:58:17 PM
I vote for Pearl Harbour, it's definitely one of the worst films I've paid cold hard cash to see. Mangled history meets mawkish romance. How close to historically accurate is it? As Bluto says in Animal House "was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?"

I do not know if it is the worst movie, but for sure more bore!... mmm maybe is in the "low" 10 listed (for me)

They can film cannon shot well - the M*& G%#*%n film Patriot had great effects for both shot and shell as did Sharpe on one of the sieges,
well the worst war film ever - Angel in Green (1987). I worked on this and most of us changed our names in the credits because it was bad and for tax reasons.
It got 9 stars on the Technical Goof rating in IMDb. I would not be surprised if no one has this as it was classy production that went "direct to video" in most countries.

Quote from: privateer on 03 May 2010, 04:12:26 AM
They can film cannon shot well - the M*& G%#*%n film Patriot had great effects for both shot and shell as did Sharpe on one of the sieges,
well the worst war film ever - Angel in Green (1987). I worked on this and most of us changed our names in the credits because it was bad and for tax reasons.
It got 9 stars on the Technical Goof rating in IMDb. I would not be surprised if no one has this as it was classy production that went "direct to video" in most countries.

A movie-maker in our midst!     

Probably have to go with Sharpe, though I do like the series enough to own the DVD set.

I sometimes have to suppress a few belly laughs when I see  half a dozen men trying desperately to  look like a proper company; a marching column advancing on their enemy comprising less men than you`d find in a football team kinda loses the sense of suspension of disbelief for me.

.... those exploding cannon balls do add comic relief don`t they   A few bouncing balls would have been nice to see.

Steve.

Just watched Robin Hood 2 days ago. The only reason I wouldn't put it on this list is that Mel Gibson isn't in it....

But... Seriously... The landing craft?? Using horses as expedient battering rams? Never mind the plot....

I've never seen this one!

I'm considering going to see the new one.

Sharpe always got on my nerves, as it was basically 1950's WW2 cinema transported back 150 years; plucky Brits vs incompetent dastardly enemies. Fine if you like the "Boy's own" school of film making, but it just seems too cartoonish. (I'll allow the exception of the line-v-column at the end of the first series, it was pretty well done)

Strangely I am quite content with that approach in 1950's WW2 films. An odd side effect of these films on me as a naive child was that my sympathies lay usually with the Germans, I thought it wasn't fair that they got machine gunned by the dozen. Obviously this was before I learned what they had been up to.

I am not that interested in WW2, but films where they use inappropriate vehicles painted grey or green really get on my nerves; Battle of the Bulge (many other problems too) and Patton (otherwise good).

The Patriot I find the battles quite enjoyable, especially the little "Elizabethtown" snippet. Otherwise I hate the film with a passion. If you only get one big budget AWI film per century these idiots blew it six months into the 21st.
We should all says our prayers that HBO make 1776 in the next few years.

For an absolutely god-awful unwatchable film try Red Zone Cuba for the Bay of Pigs. The MST3k version is a hoot, don't try to watch it straight. And its not even Coleman Francis' worst film.

Quote from: Derk G on 15 May 2010, 11:11:35 AM
Just watched Robin Hood 2 days ago. The only reason I wouldn't put it on this list is that Mel Gibson isn't in it....

But... Seriously... The landing craft?? Using horses as expedient battering rams? Never mind the plot....

Never mind the landing craft, you call that a Yorkshire accent?

Quote from: clibinarium on 16 May 2010, 11:13:04 PM
[] If you only get one big budget AWI film per century these idiots blew it six months into the 21st.
We should all says our prayers that HBO make 1776 in the next few years.

One of the problems with AWI films i guess is getting major US studios to accept a script which is anything other than a stereotypical Americans = heroes, Brits=villains. There is so much (understandable) mythology around the war that it would be quite a commercial risk to make a film that tried to debunk it. Having said that the recent series on John Adams was pretty well done (although pretty light on military action)