William Tell (2024)

William Tell (2024). 2h 13m | R

“I watched the world premiere of William Tell at the Toronto International Film Festival (2024).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe presenter of the festival had said before the movie, u0026quot;they donu0026#39;t make movies like this anymoreu0026quot;. I assumed that was a positive thing.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eUnfortunately, it really wasnu0026#39;t. The biggest issue of the movie was the language used.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is a 14th-century period piece that involved the Swiss and Austrians. But for whatever reason the dialogue was written in something that sounded like a high-schooleru0026#39;s approximation of Victorian English.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAccording to the director, he wrote the dialogue to have language unique to the film. Maybe to assist in some sense of believability within this world. Instead the film was often hard to follow. Character motivations were lost in the flowery, disjointed language.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThat being said – the cast did their absolute best with the film. Golshifteh Farahani, Connor Swindells, Rafe Spall, and Ellie Bamber were standouts.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eDonu0026#39;t go to see the film for Ben Kingsley – he was barely in it and his performance felt completely phoned in.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf youu0026#39;re okay with 2-hours of mindlessness as you watch beautiful scenery and cool fight scenes – I think there is enough to enjoy.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe movie set up a sequel. I do hope it can be made, and some changes to how dialogue and character interactions are done will be made.”