While the first IRONCLAD was a solid medieval action movie, this sequel is essentially the same movie and, even more to it's detriment, is horribly shot and edited. Describing the plot is an easy task. Basically, replace King John's small army with a clan of Scottish raiders and you have this movie. The only connection between the two is a minor character, Guy, who is the main character in this sequel (but played by a different actor). Other than that, the plot plays out, beat for beat, almost exactly like its predecessor. And to top things off, it is worse in almost every department. The acting isn't as good as the first one and there aren't any big-name actors to elevate the material, but no one stuck out as being particularly horrible. Additionally, the violence and gore aren't completely practical this time, instead opting for CGI blood spatter and poor dummy work for the more graphic shots (e.g., beheading). There was also some fairly obvious green screen and CGI enhancements that were really distracting at times. However, the worst aspect of this film is the camera-work, which is mostly "shaky-cam." Hand-held camera during the dialogue scenes didn't really bother me, but the vigorous shaking of the camera during the action sequences was nauseating and made them extremely hard to follow. Still, there are a few aspects which aren't too bad. For one the score is appropriate to the material, even though a bit overblown. And even though the action scenes are rather poorly filmed, there are some good kills. They also attempt (with mixed results) to give the characters, including the villains, some depth. Overall, this film is a few steps down from the first in terms of quality across the board, some of it probably due to the reduced budget.
