Review of Black Death (2010) by George Z — 21 Jun 2012

It is 1348 in a plague-ridden medieval England. Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), a young monk, has unbeknownst to his brothers fallen in love with Averill (Kimberley Nixon), a young girl who took sanctuary in the monastery. After the plague befalls his monastery, he believes it is no longer safe and sends her home to the forest. She asks him to join her, but he declines on account of his vows, after which she tells him she will wait for him at the edge of the forest by a marker for one week. Soon after, Osmund prays that God will give him a sign, as he wishes to leave to join her. As he is doing so, a group of soldiers enters the Church looking for a guide to a village not far from where Osmund's love Averill was to wait for him. Osmund takes this as a sign and volunteers to lead the knight Ulric (Sean Bean) and a group of soldiers to a remote marshland village which has remained untouched by the Black Death. Their quest is to hunt down a necromancer, who is rumoured to be able to bring the dead back to life. A journery with challenges they could not forsee....

I got hold of "Black Death" during a sale at the local dvdstore and had inital hopes for an intriguing movie with the bubonic plague as the backdrop. As said the story is interesting in general, but I personally feel that director Christopher Smith fails to give the movie a proper scary and dark feeling. And I do not like how he ties the movie together. Sean Bean is good as Ulric, but he should by now be tired of doing way too similar characters more or less all the time. And Eddie Redmayne walks around as Osmund in a constant overacted state looking like he needs to go to the loo. And Carice van Houten feels a bit misplaced. And when seeing Tim McInnerny I can only think of Captain Darling... So no, this could have been better.