Braveheart Reviews

In this mix of historical tragedy and hip adventure, Gibson may be as galvanic a movie swashbuckler as Errol Flynn and Burt Lancaster were in their day.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

The political argument that ensues is pretty dull, but the battle scenes are the loudest and most convincing in years: Gibson has learned from Kurosawa in lending a clarifying thrust to what is, essentially, chaos.

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If you like your Hollywood to be as big, stirring and spectacular as possible, then there's no denying that Braveheart was one of the highpoints of '90s cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

It succeeds in bringing to life the reality of Scottish patriotism and brilliantly captures the spirit of revolution.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Completely honest, and completely eager, and subtle as an iron hammer to the skull.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

Mel Gibson's Oscared, bloody Scottish spectacle.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A vanity project if ever there was one.

Full Review | Original Score: C

A real modern epic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Braveheart looks like a true epic -- even if it is both bloody and bloody long.

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A huge, bloody and sprawling epic, Braveheart is the sort of massive vanity piece that would be easy to disparage if it didn't essentially deliver.

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So inspiring is his message that my own girlfriend channeled it, in the warning I received prior to my reviewing the film: You'd better love it, or I'll disembowel you.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

With a sweeping look, lots of emotion, a classic hero, occasionally corny dialogue and forced romances, Braveheart is a flawed classic.

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At the heart of Mel Gibson's tumultuously entertaining epic is the almost-quaint notion that movie heroics should mean something more than a play for the much-coveted 18-25 box office demographic.

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A massive, sweaty, frequently silly epic that nevertheless delivers enough brute pleasure to pass a rainy afternoon.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

A great big splendorific Hollywood epic that's not exactly original or cliche-free, but fairly satisfying.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Pure hokum.

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One of the weakest films to ever win the Best Picture Oscar, Mel Gibson's wannabe historical saga is handsome to look at but shallow and ultra-violent.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

Gibson hews to a style that is visually elaborate without ever being visually complicated, scraping away the traces of any irony or dimension from every shot, every scene.

Full Review | Original Score: C-

While the violence is raw, so are the emotions.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

In addtion to starring in the film, Gibson also directs it, and does so impressively.

Full Review | Original Score: B