When I saw that this movie had a 6.1 and just a couple of reviews on IMDb I felt the need to write a review and shed some light. I've seen people on other sites (mostly catholic ones, duh) giving this movie "10/10 GOD BLESS YOU". It even won some award that call themselves "the catholic Oscars". Now, I'm not religious, but I don't think I have the word to say that this movie fails in the religious sense, but I've seen other religious movies and this one fails even against them.
This movie is boring and slow like no other, and it's way too long. There's no proper introduction for the characters and from the beginning, you don't have any reason to like them. The dialog is bland and reeks of soap opera, the subplots are too cliché. There are some scenes that were completely unnecessary and should have been deleted. There are weird tonal shifts in the movie, where the characters would be in a life-death situation, then they would say some joke (that I'm pretty sure 80-year old catholics would find very funny) and they would go back to the drama, in total soap opera fashion. For the most part it is unfitting, but it also distracts from the actual story.
You'd expect that this movie, being a historical movie would try to show two sides of the conflict, at least to make it believable, but the bad guys act too much like bad guys "we hate the church because reasons".There's a lot of discussion about the political undertones of this movie and how the church tries to hide the crimes it also committed, but in the end it all narrows down to how one-sided this movie is.
The acting is really bad, I've seen kids on plays showing more emotions, and some of them look like they're reading from a teleprompter. And the photography, Jesus, this movie looks like it was done on a budget lower than "The Room". There are a couple of scenes that are shot in Chroma Key that are so bad it's distracting. The camera is fixated for most of the time, and the movie seems to be shot on a very low frame rate that seems unfitting most of the time.
And don't think the sound is saved either. The soundtrack is composed of cliché "epic" sounds, not even full songs. There is a scene in slow motion where they're walking and there's the typical orchestra "Epic movement" that's really really over the top. The sound is badly mixed, there are scenes where you have to cover your ears because they're so loud, and there are scenes where it's so soft that you can't understand anything.
So, basically, if you want to be entertained, don't watch this movie. If you want to learn something about the martyrs of Barbastro, don't watch this movie. If you're religious and want to watch a movie about the struggles of martyrs, don't fool yourself, there are far better options. If you love boredom, it's all yours. In my opinion, this movie is an insult to the actual historical event, the martyrs that died there, the people involved in the revolution and pretty much anyone who tries to watch this mess of a film.
