Title: Lionheart (15)
Year: 2003
Running Time: 257 minutes
Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy
Cast: Glenn Close (Eleanor), Patrick Stewart (Henry), Johnathan Rhys Myers (Phillip) Notes: Won a number of awards including a Golden Globe.
Rating: 9
Thoughts: King Henry II meets with his wife Eleanor to decide which of their sons will be King after him.
If you take some strong actors and then a decent enough script based on some impressive base characters then you're halfway there.
All of the main characters are real people who did some astounding things in their time, battling internally as the Angevin dynasty approached its end.
The costumes and scenes are great, and Stewart's performance in particular is superb. The narrative bounds along and it really doesn't feel quite as lengthy as it actually is.
I do have to remark on the character of Prince John, and whilst he has been much maligned through history, here he is portrayed as an unrealistic imbecile. Cunning, duplicitous, scheming, maybe. But I have never read anything suggesting he was an idiot.
That one blip aside, this is a very strong TV film.