MOVIE NEWS – The Hungarian historical series about the birth of the The Golden Bull of 1222, which cost Hungarian taxpayers a billion forints, currently has a 1.1 average (out of 10) on IMDB, based on nearly 1,500 votes, and no other film or series has a worse rating than it.

 

Media1 recently reported that MTVA said of the much-criticised Golden Bull series: ‘there have been many positive reviews’, but given the feedback and our own experience (we will be reviewing it shortly, but for now there are more worthy material lined up that deserves more attention), it is hard to imagine those voices being genuine.

Incidentally, according to the Media1 article, the only identifiable “positive feedback” so far was given by the film’s lead actor, Tamás Veréb, who plays Andreas II, in these words:

“I am confident that with the Golden Bull something unique and iconic like the rock opera Stephen the King has been created. The story is captivating, filmed by the best in the business, adapted to 21st century film needs. From the trailer, viewers can already see that the imagery is a match for the massively popular Game of Thrones.”

Most of the reviews that have appeared so far have clearly slammed the film. Géza Csákvári wrote this in Népszabadság:

“a cinematic disaster disguised as a historical film”, in which “badly instructed actors suffer through terribly ugly shots with dialogue at a schoolboy level”.

In HVG, Bálint Kovács put it this way:

“the greats who have been known to be good actors bring the most characteristic character traits of the “today’s school commemoration is even more important because the head of the school district is watching us” type of amateur acting to the table.”

Only the popular media praised the series, while also scourging the “opposition” press for attacking this “great work of art”. According to Milán Constantinovits, a journalist for the pro-government Mandiner the series “draws on the national past, on historical sources, and is constructive,” although it is difficult to see from his painfully badly written and edited review what other values the series has as a film work. About half of the “criticism” tends to be concerned with criticizing the critics of the series anyway.

We also think that The Golden Bull is almost unappreciative, amateurish, and lousy in every way, so it is hard to imagine what the billion forints could have been spent on. (We haven’t seen the series on other platforms, such as Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes, and chances are we won’t.)

The two worst rated films so far, with their 1.2 ratings, were tied with Daniel Der Zauberer from 2004 and Smolensk from 2016, according to an IMDB list. The “IMDB bottom” list can be viewed here.

Source : Media1