The 1 star is for the actor playing David. If he'd had better material, he would have shone much brighter. Honorable mention for the men playing his brothers. They too were inhibited by their (excessively repeated) lines, but I could see that they do have some talent in there. The actor playing Saul wasn't awful, just not quite right for the "role".
That is literally all I have to say good about this alleged film. I'm actually very generous to films with real effort behind them usually - but this one does not deserve it. The good reviews are either bogus or biased, and my review is to help counter them with truth.
I'm not going to make this real long, because others have articulated the myriad of issues with this film very well. But I do want to add my two cents about a few things:
The Costumes: They were absolutely, unacceptably, ridiculously substandard by any definition. They literally looked like they were mass purchased sheaves of discount fabric that they didn't even bother to sew the edges of. The colors were a garish off shade of red, and there was a ton of it. The costumes were closer to Roman style than anything the Jews would have worn in a pre- Roman era. The fabric looked cotton/rayon/polyester instead of wool, so the "billowing in the wind" to (unintentional) comical effect was distracting. Some strips of cloth were wrapped around head pieces at times. Yards of unshaped material was draped this way and that on people, and fastened with pleather and brass looking buckles. The "armor" looked to be of some kind of lightweight foam material or also pleather, because they too billowed in the wind (to more comical effect). The cap sleeves had cut edges, not finished edges - nothing I saw had finished edges - yet we're supposed to believe these were their military uniforms. There was nowhere to put a sword, and the helmets looked like gold painted plastic. The Philistine "uniforms" were similar, but black. Lots of comical billowing there again. I was distracted beyond belief by those costumes. I've seen better in a Kindergarten play...
Michal: They pronounced her name as Michelle, she was uncharacteristically blonde, and she was absolutely out of place randomly wandering the hills with soldiers involved in a holy war. That is beyond the pale NOT "biblically accurate".
Goliath: A caricature unworthy of the fearsome villain whose death launched David to fame. He comes across as just a large, and largely unintelligent, schoolyard bully of extremely limited vocabulary. I was reminded of Mongo in Blazing Saddles - but Blazing Saddles was supposed to be funny (and was), and D&G was supposed to be inspiring, (and failed).
Repetition: I began to laugh each time the poor actors playing David's brothers had to try to (again) convince David to not fight. I mean, it became clockwork. David would make his case for faith, they'd deride him, he'd leave. Lather, rinse, repeat. 5-8 times. Nevermind the times Michal, Saul, and others also did the same. This was the entire movie, badly done, until the "battle."
The Battle: Laughable...in a very sad way. They circle each other, David doesn't even swing his sling to gain momentum, then he very weakly overhand throws his shot, rock bounces off Goliath's forehead, drops to knees, David slices him for the kill - with a sword there is no way he could have lifted. Next thing you know, Goliath's head is detached from his body when the prior shot showed him dead with head attached...
One Scene: Where some men had been caught doing something wrong (I wasn't paying much attention to the particulars anymore), they were begging for mercy. It was fine, till the scene went on...and on...and on. By the end of it, the more weepy of the two men just continued to shout "Noooo", then you see him standing still, looking back, and shouting "Nooo" one last time, but he also looked like he was ready to laugh, cause it was just overkill by then. Watch for it (if you can stomach it), it was a case of needing to be edited down much shorter, but they needed the filler.
OK, this ended up longer than I'd wanted, so I'm done now. Just avoid the movie, unless you want to learn how to not make a movie, or wish to punish your wayward teen...
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