Well this was a pleasant surprise.
I was expecting a dramatic dialog heavy film with Richard Harris.
And you certainly do get that.
But I was unaware that Alec Guinness was playing Charles the first.
That was a very happy surprise.
And better yet, he gets a surprising amount of screen time.
Until he loses his head towards the end of the movie he has almost as much screen time as Cromwell at some point.
So you couple these two great actors together with very different personalities, very different stances, portraying extremely differing people; alongside well made sets, good-looking costumes and some pretty good battle choreography.
You get yourself a surprisingly enjoyable film.
I find it hilarious in a way that Charles the first; one of the worst monarchs in British history and one of my least favourites on personal level. Should be played by one of my absolute favourite actors.
If there's a man out there that's going to make me enjoy an absolutist disconnected Monarch it's going to be Alec Guinness.
Which then becomes kind of ironic given that Cromwell some years later would also be something of an absolutist. Though with the veneer of a democratic parliamentary system.
Also no mention of the Irish genocides.
Such things don't even occur in this movie but then that's not the point of it.
It's about the Civil War and the rise to power of Cromwell in an overly dramatic style. And for that it's pretty darn solid.
I do think queen Henrietta Maria was given a bit of a nasty portrayal in this film. I
'm sure she had some manipulation with her husband in real life but the movie makes it look like she's the one really pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Making Charles commit every bad action and leading the country into a needless Civil War all with her mainland European values and reviews of Catholicism. Coupling alongside a German prince who comes in support of the royalists during the Civil War.
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