Named the worst French movie ever made, Druids is a “war drama.” Though not the worst movie I have ever seen, it comes pretty damn close. This movie looks okay compared to other movies filmed in the 1980’s but unfortunately, this movie was not filmed in the 1980s, it was filmed in 2001. It gives you a hint of the quality you will get when you pop this movie in for the first time. Combine that quality of film with the most confusing and nonsensical story ever written and you have yourself a glorious catastrophe of cinema.
Spoiler Alert!
I’ve started to notice a weird trend with these bad movies that the audio is mostly dubbed in throughout the film. Druids is no different. Even though Druids was filmed in both English and French, the filmmakers seemed to just edit both versions together and just dubbed in the audio that was missing. This leads to weird scenes where a character looks to be talking fine and then out of nowhere their lips become out of sync with the words we hear. Even the main character, Vercingétroix, has dialogue issues. He goes from having a thick accent to not being understandable at all and even speaking perfectly fine American English at times.
Vercingétorix, played by Christopher Lambert, is the worst main character name of any movie, ever. Apparently, this is based on a true tale and Veringétorix is a historical character but that name should just never be used ever again. His story starts off with him as a child and his little girlfriend, Epona, as they wonder into the woods and find a homeless druid named Guttuart, played by the only decent actor in the film, Max Von Sydow. The boy just gives the druid his horse and tells him to go to the castle where he lives even though they just met and he does not know anything about him. Later that night, he sees his uncle kill his father by ordering someone to shoot an arrow that clearly was misfired into his back and then burns him alive. The actor unfortunately shows no emotion towards what is going on in this death scene. Vercingétorix then vows to get revenge for his father and we see him grown up in the next shot.
We see Vercingétorix as a man now with a horrible wig on his head, something everyone in the film wears. He feels like he is ready to avenge his father but apparently, Guttuart, the druid, tells him, after all this time, that he should start druid training. He spends years training as a druid to get ready to take on his uncle and finally avenge his father. This seems like they are setting an epic fight scene between uncle and nephew, which should end the movie in a grand fashion. Nope, that’s not what we get at all. What we do get is 20 minutes into the movie, Vercingétorix strolls in on horseback to his uncle’s place, in broad daylight and just stabs him in the shoulder and he dies, revenge complete. So, the main plot point is complete and then you realize you still have an hour and a half left of this over-extended, random assortment of cinema atrocity.
We later get introduced to a dismal portrayal of Julius Caesar, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, in which we find out had a hand in the death of Vercingétorix’s father adding more plot points to this movie. They fill in the rest of the movie with random events happening for no reason, characters who seemed more confused with the plot than the audience watching the film and a war scene with a defense composed of tossed chickens and topless women. It is extremely hard to keep up with what is going on story-wise throughout the film due to the editing. There were these weird cuts from night to day without completely explaining or concluding the events of the prior evening leaving you guessing what happened and where you are at this point of the film. To conclude the movie, after all the wars and struggles Vercingétorix goes through just to get revenge for his father, the film ends with him just surrendering to Caesar anyway and the credits roll.
One of my favorite scenes from the movie is when Vercingétorix gives one of the weirdest explanations for messing up to his men. He states, after their complaints, “Your anger is my anger, at myself, because I made one mistake, I listened to you.” Yep, exceptional writing.
This movie is filled with bad acting, horrible editing and one of the most uninspired stories I have ever had the displeasure of viewing. The worst part is that it reportedly cost $15 million to produce this film and was a complete bust. Compared to the previous Ode to Bad Reels films, Manos: the Hands of Fate and The Room, which were both so hilariously bad that they are worth watching for some chuckles, Druids is just a bad movie with very little laughs that even a cult following can’t find redeeming. You seriously have to be in the mood to watch a terrible movie to find some enjoyment from this film. If you’re not, I’d skip this film.
