This movie was a rollercoaster for me. It was a great action flick, it had good acting, good motivations. And it brought something new to the table by making it a film set in the 1700's, which certainly is refreshing.
However, the biggest flaw of this movie is just how much *beep* its filled with. Its not like one or two minor mistakes, like some Swedes speaking German for some reason. No, I'm talking about enormous mistakes that there's no way someone did on accident.
Like the Swedes pillaging, which didn't happen for a plethora of reasons. First off, pillaging was punishable by Death in the Swedish army. Secondly, the Swedish army was almost comically disciplined, and never ever pillaged. And thirdly, scorched earth! Even if the Swedes pillaged, there would be nothing for them to pillage!
The Russians had already done all the pillaging for them.
Or how the movie shows Charles getting wounded (Which is accurate) but decides to show him leading anyway, which is just made up. This movie gets just enough information right to tell me that they actually researched this subject, which makes me all the more pissed that they're purposefully twisting history to suit the plot.
Making the Swedes comic book villans. They're portrayed as power-hungry, warmongering, murdering, heartless psychopaths. And the Russians are portrayed as just being young boys, forced into war to save their country.
In reality this is just what the movie made up.
I am not asking the movie to portray the Swedes as heroes, and the Russians as evil. I am asking this movie to be fair. The Russians can be portrayed as young boys being forced into service to fight a foreign power. But they also need to portray how the Swedish soldiers feel like they're just bringing justice and revenge to a Czar who invaded their homeland and burnt their cities to the ground.
But the movie chooses to make it black and white. Twisting history in favor of the Russians, and making the Swedes look like the Joker.
The movie is good, but as a history buff I just can't enjoy it. Not when its deliberately vilifying and over-simplifying one of the most interesting people and soldiers in history.
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