Black Death Review

Black Death Review

By Jose

Plot:

The year is 1348. Europe has fallen under the shadow of the Black Death. As the plague decimates all in its path, fear and superstition are rife. In this apocalyptic environment, the church is losing its grip on the people. There are rumors of a village, hidden in marshland that the plague cannot reach. There is even talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to bring the dead back to life. Ulric (Sean Bean), a fearsome knight, is charged by the church to investigate these rumors. He enlists the guidance of a novice monk, Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) to lead him and his band of mercenary soldiers to the marshland, but Osmund has other motives for leaving his monastery. Their journey to the village and events that unfold take them into the heart of darkness and to horrors that will put Osmund’s faith in himself and his love for God to the ultimate test.

Review:

The plot description above is long but it needed to in order to properly explain the movie. It is not that Black Death is complicated or deep movie. If I were to try to compress it down to three or four lines it would not do the movie justice.
Now to the movie. We find ourselves in a monastery in a town ravaged by the black death plague. A monk, Osmund, grabs food and leaves to meet a girl that he likes. Well that raises questions from him and her about being in God’s favor by doing that and putting themselves at risk of being punished by the plague. Osmund tells her to leave and meet him at another holy location so they can leave and wait out the plague. Osmund questions his faith and asks God for a sign to what he should do. It comes in the form of a Holy Knight Ulric looking for a guide through the swamp and forest area. We soon meet Ulric the knights mercenaries and find out exactly what they are set out to do. Find this plague free town and kill the necromancer and convert the heathens who follow it.
Throughout the movie we see many situations where Osmund questions what the intentions of the knight and church are and finds himself questioning his faith and God. Once the group finds the town and are welcomed in they find themselves in a plague free utopia of sorts. The healer of the town a woman helps Osmund find his girlfriend who was found dead. This affects Osmund tremendously. Later the woman reveals to Osmund her true identity as the necromancer and revives his once dead girl. Osmund goes nuts and runs away. Soon finding himself and the others trapped and ready to be killed. Some gruesome kills and deaths later. Osmund finds himself confronting his revived girlfriend and promptly kills her himself. Totally losing whatever was left of his faith and mind. Especially when the necromancer reveals that she only drugged the girl and everything was just one big lie. Osmund killed his girlfriend. Ulric the knight does what he promised and delivers the black death upon the village, which he was suffering from, once he is killed. The ending of the movie is pretty much a look into what happened to Osmund once he returned to the monastery. He took up the mantle of holy knight finding and killing all who stand against the church and those charged with witch craft. But the problem is that Osmund is not well mentally and soon finds himself finding revenge on necromancer over and over. He sees every female accused of witchcraft as the necromancer that hurt his all those years ago.

Final Thoughts:

Black Death is a pretty good period piece movie about the black plague. Good action and good story. Although sometimes it felt a bit weak in the story and pacing. Sean Bean has turned into the go to guy for these medieval movies yet every time I see him in one he is very, very good. Eddie Redmayne is pretty much the stand out of the movie. He literally looks like this innocent young man tormented by his faith and life. Plus he has these big juicy lips that are distracting haha haha.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5