Age of Heroes (2011) User Reviews

Not the greatest, yet far from the worst WWII film

[Jbtullisorder · 7/10 · 26 June 2011]

I'm not understanding all the negativity in the user reviews about this film. Sure, Sean Bean is not the world's greatest actor, but he did a fine job in this role. True, the movie shared some themes found in other WWII movies, but how can that possibly be avoided in this day and age?

The movie does lack moments of depth--for example the training camp in Scotland shows lots of yelling and little else. However, contrary to previous opinions, the mission is quite clearly explained prior to the team undertaking it--hence the need for the non-commando "specialist" who is brought along to ensure success.

This movie was entertaining, moves at a brisk pace (although too brisk in some places), and has fun moments combined with tragic and sad. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I found it enjoyable, and while not Academy Award material, I would recommend that anyone who likes Action/War movies takes a look.

Unfortunate undeveloped story and cast

[Garyheng · 6/10 · 27 June 2011]

I set out watching this movie with minimal expectations given that many war stories typically revolve similar themes. The beginning of the movie all the way through to the mid sections surprised me with strong character plays and development from Sean Bean and the revolving cast. The story line while not new, managed to capture my attention with good acting and keeping the story on the go.

Unfortunately as it nears towards the end, the story seems to have been "chopped off" with a somewhat quick ending to a nicely built up story. I believe this could have been better done with a proper ending to the story.

Good acting though.

Entertaining, but rough around the edges

[forasale · 7/10 · 16 June 2011]

It's a solid action flick for sure - nothing terribly new, but it does good work with the WW2 formula that other war flicks have used before.

There is no one flaw I can point to in this film as my reason for giving it a 7, but quite honestly, the thought that stayed in my mind as I watched it was that this film while good, had the potential to be great.

It falls short. The acting and character development is intriguing, but lacks the depth of characters in films like Inglorious Basterds.

It has a fun story, but a little more detail could have may the commando training subplot as well as the rest of the movie so much more.

The beginning is great, but leaves many scenes to the imagination of the viewer. You almost have to wonder if the film was gutted in order to shorten the running time to its fairly short hour and a half.

Like I said, it's good - but it could have been great.

Very poor adaptation of what could otherwise have been a fantastic film

[Dizzy_DavidH · 18 June 2011]

It definitely seems that this movie was butchered to bring it down to a shorter length action flick and take it out of the realms of a wartime espionage type thriller.

The plot is loosely based upon the experiences of Ian Fleming (ala. James Bond author) during his time in the commandos during WWII and really should have been much more of an espionage movie and less of a 'let's all do or die'. The story also really fails to even manage that also as the resultant feeling of the movie when all is said and done is kind of a 'let's barely manage to do and also pretty much all die' story instead.

Sure, realism is an important point in a war film as those that sugar-coat it too much or simply turn into weird fantasy come of feeling really false (think of the apparently drug-induced nonsense of Kelly's Heroes) but that doesn't mean to say it has to make you feel utterly miserable as many parts of this movie do.

With the inclusion of the Danny Dyer character from the stockade and pending court-martial, the training sequence in a bare landscape somewhere in England, the parachute drop into enemy territory, the maniacal SS squad hunting down the heroes through to the main mission and final escape to freedom, there seems to be too much borrowed from many other films (The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare etc.).

There are whole sections of this film that seem to be missing in the final cut which make things a little rushed and not to mention confusing. During the training sequence of the film Dyer's character is punished for being a good marksmen and subsequently told that if he had failed in his training and was being sent back to the stockade. 'Why?' you are left asking as there has seemingly been no cause for to be necessary as we haven't seen Dyer misbehave, be rude to anyone or fail any training task he has been given.

We also assume that Bean' and the Sgt characters are killed or captured during the final stages of the movie but we just don't know as it isn't part of the film nor is the air-drop into Norway where we lose a character due to a broken neck (presumably on landing).

My strongest dislike in the movie was the over-use of the 'F' word by pretty much all the squaddies, NCOs and officers as it just isn't necessary. One sentence from the Sgt's mouth was around twenty words long and over half of them where the 'F' word and I know from stories told to me by my late Grandfather, who was a WWII serving Drill\PT instructor in the British Army, that bad language was not permitted and quite often meant disciplinary action with the strongest language being permitted being around the 'bloody-hell' mark.

Besides all that the movie had the potential to be so much better and fails to deliver on so many levels that I would suggest people avoid it at all costs (something I very rarely say about a movie).

I give the movie a 2-star review as I personally reserve a 1-star for the truly awful but also feel obliged to add that if this film's plot, cast and editing where a whole 100% better than in the final release I would still not consider giving it more than a 4-star vote.

Final Words: do yourself a favour and watch the classic Where Eagles Dare instead of this movie as it is a truly awesome movie with everything that Age Of Heroes should and could have been and a whole lot more!

Reasonably good movie.

[motman-42914 · 6/10 · 17 March 2016]

Apart from the model aircraft used, for example the three ME 109s strafing and bombing at the start and the burning bomber with a whole wing on fire - then it's not too bad a movie.The combat action scenes and the acting I thought were very good. The locations were excellent and there were quite a few twists and turns of the plot in that one never knew what might happen next. Or who, if anyone was going to get away safely to Sweden. One thing I didn't think rang true and realistic was those of the survivors reaching the Swedish border, then acting as though it was just a simple walk across the border. There were always German guards patrolling the border, looking out for escapees and others trying to get into Sweden.

This interesting and decent wartime picture about commandos packs thrills , emotion , high-powered action-packed , shootouts and explosions

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 1 April 2019]

The motion picture's opening title card reads: "France - May 1940" in Dunkirk , there takes place a sad retreat . This true story of the formation of Ian Fleming's 30 Commando unit, a precursor for the elite forces in the U.K. , as our protagonists undertake risked feats from the edge of defeat on the beaches of Dunkirk to the mountains of Norway on a perilous mission behind enemy lines . It is set in 1940 , it concerns about a misfit team led by Major Jones : Sean Bean is assigned by Ian Fleming : James D'Arcy to assemble an 8-men commando team to travel to Norway , as Sean Bean and his squad have to carry out a suicide mission in Norway . The leader forges them into a two-fisted fighting unit by training in the Scotland outdoors and leads them on a deadly assignment into Nazi territory . The powerful group is formed by Rains : Danny Dyer , Aksel Hennie : Steinar , William Houston : Mac , Brightling : Stephen Walters , Riley : Guy Burnet and with specialist Roger Rollright : John Dagleish . This is a story which takes our heroes into a deadly assignment , if successful, could modify the course of the war . They are parachuted in Norwegian landscapes to meet the agent Beowulf (Izabella Miko) and destroy the German Freyo Station and rob German state-of-the-art technology of Radio Direction Finding (RDF) in Operation Grendel that bears remarkable resemblance to the real-life "Bruneval Raid" which was officially also known as "Operation Biting".

This moving film packs frantic thrills, perilous adventures , relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action and violence. The noisy action is uniformly well-made, especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring final scenes on the snowy scenarios , including some spectacular shootouts and bombing . Based on the real-life events of Ian Fleming's 30 Commando during WWII , the first half of the film allows the colorful cast of character actors to have their fun as they get their tails whipped into shape and develop shaky relationship with their leader. The final part is all action, as the valiant commando wreck havoc and then run for their lives. Despite the fact that few of the "heroes" survive the bloodbath, the message here is that war is hell. Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by Major Jones/Sean Bean into his brave group , the film is full of feats , intrigue , noisy acting , suspense , and thrills . The crew was supported by actual commandos, real British commandos, worked on this project. They helped and they played members of the SS. They were all ex-military men who have worked in Iraq and Afghanistan and have seen real action. They included every single detail in the finished edit. They educated them in the workings of warfare. This is is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando sub-genre¨ , a theme very popular in the sixties , including classic titles , such as : Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich) , Navarone Guns (J. Lee Thompson) , Where eagles dare(Brian G. Hutton) , Kelly's heroes(Hutton ) , Tobruk (Arthur Hiller), Devil's Brigade (Andrew V McLagen) and many others . Sean Bean is good as leader of the motley pack together thwart the Nazi schemes, as well as the largely secondary cast with special mention for Aksel Hennie , Stephen Walters ,William Houston , Izabella Miko and James D'Arcy as Ian Fleming . Just prior to the Second World War, Ian Fleming "- well played by James D'Arcy- whose code-name was "17F, was recruited into British Naval Intelligence where he excelled, shortly achieving the rank of Commander. The name of the the real life military outfit that 007 creator fought for which is depicted in the film was the "30 Commando Unit" which was also known as the "30 Assault Unit" and informally also known as Ian Fleming's "Red Indians . When the war ended, Fleming retired to Jamaica where he built a house called "Goldeneye," took up writing full-time and created the character that would make him famous -- British Secret Service agent James Bond, in a novel called "Casino Royale."

It contains a thrilling and suspenseful musical score by Michael Plowman . As well as a colorful and evocative cinematography by Mark Hamilton . Being filmed on location in Ålgård, Rogaland, Vågslid, Telemark, Norway , Haukeliseter, Telemark, Norway ,Gravesend Civil Defence Bunker - Woodlands Park, Gravesend, Kent, England, Connaught Barracks, Dover, Kent, Pluckley, Kent, England, UK . The motion picture was professionally directed by Adrian Victoria , an usual director/writer of TV episodes as The Bill , Crossing the Line , Casualty , Driven and ocassionally for cinema as Capital Punishment , The crew and this Age of heroes . Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable Warlike movie .

Watch the credible films instead

[roald-1 · 3/10 · 19 June 2011]

The most credible detail with this story is the Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie, who had the lead in the excellent WW2 film 'Max Manus – Man of war'. That film is realistic. In real life, operations against occupied Norway were well organized from Scotland, where soldiers could be trained under winter conditions with native Norwegians as consultants and participants. Best known is Kompani Linge (Linge's Company).

To drop soldiers over Norwegian mountains in winter without proper equipment would be suicide. Several people have reacted to the lack of camouflage clothes, but even worse is the lack of skis. At the end of the film, the survivors are ordered to "walk to Sweden" from an area in the mountains "north of Bergen" – a distance of 400 miles (650 km) through the most hostile environment in northern Europe. Without skis and food. And probably without long underwear.

The most realistic film about British raids into Norway was the old 'Kampen om tungtvannet' (The Battle for the heavy water, 1948), later corrupted by Hollywood in the Kirk Douglas film 'The Heroes of Telemark' (1965). In 2005, BBC made a 3-part documentary called "The real heroes of Telemark" where modern top-trained and top- equipped soldiers almost failed when trying to repeat the achievement of surviving a whole winter in the Norwegian mountains. This documentary is still available on YouTube.

Good Action Film with a Disappointing Conclusion

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 2 August 2011]

In 1940, Major Jones (Sean Bean) is assigned to team up an 8-men commando to travel to Norway with the specialist Roger Rollright (John Dagleish) to meet the agent Beowulf and destroy the German Freyo Station and steal the German state-of-art technology of Radio Direction Finding (RDF) in the Operation Grendel.

Jones travels to the Dashwood Military Prison to bring the soldier Brightling (Stephen Walters) and he brings also the insubordinate Corporal Bob Rains (Danny Dyer); then the commando heads to Scotland to be trained.

When they fly to Norway, they are discovered and the plane crashes. Six members of the military unit and the specialist survive to the attack. When they accomplish their assignment, the naval pickup is not possible and the survivors without supply and little ammunition need to walk to Switzerland in a dangerous journey through a land occupied by German forces.

"Age of Heroes" is a non-original film of war but a good action film. The story is a combination of several well-known war movies ("The Wild Geese"; "Inglorious Bastards"; "The Dirty Dozen"; "The Guns of Navarone" and others), with a promising beginning and a disappointing conclusion.

Sean Bean is among my favorite actors and he has a great performance as usual. The acting indeed is pretty good but the screenplay needed to be improved. I still do not understand why Jones shoots his own man with a precise shot instead of the sadistic officer that is torturing him. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Comando de Elite" ("Elite Commando")

Loosely based on a true story and ending inconclusive

[ghasl1 · 4/10 · 16 June 2011]

Just seen this movie little bit disappointed how British commandos can be easily captured and in quantity even the torture scene with the captured SAS soldier was just awestuck took sean bean long enough to keep him quiet. They don't even wear winter smocks for camouflage and there standing out in the open with 'just shoot me' all written all over them. They don't even hide the dead German bodies or their parachutes or at least try to sniper the SS officer.

I can only say that when it gets to the end you become disappointed. You don't know what happens to sean bean's character and his companions, did they ever evacuate and what about the secret information they stole is unknown. There is not even a quote or written details in the end to say what happened or if there is going to be a sequel, it was as if it was cut short.

The actual true story is set in France not Norway and it was named Operation Biting not Operation Grendel not that I know of. Don't expect it to be clint eastwood style like that movie 'Where Eagles Dare' they probably didn't had enough money to make a movie similar to that.

OK for war buffs

[phd_travel · 6/10 · 17 November 2012]

This is a rather small scale intimate WWII drama about a Commando unit going to Norway to steal some radar technology from a German base there. There are gunfights but not huge battle scenes. Those expecting some super clever espionage because of Ian Fleming will be disappointed. It is a cover mission but it's not a spy yarn.

A little too much time was spent on the commandos training which was tedious. More at the end about how the mission helped the war would have been better.

They show Nazi atrocities towards the Norwegians. Not everyone remembers that Norway suffered during WWII.

Not too many famous actors here except Sean Bean. Overall while not a must see it's an okay watch far war buffs.

A very good adventure film

[ronfirv · 5/10 · 12 June 2011]

Sean Bean as good in this film as he usually is, and Danny Dyer(Rains) surprisingly convincing as the cheeky,rebellious British soldier. Good early scenes up in Scotland,& a good opening scene with Danny & his platoon in northern France heading for Dunkerque and later memories, once the film is set in Norway in winter, of "Heroes of Telemark". There was one quite harrowing scene where the local villagers were shot by the Nazi Occupying Forces, but the ending fell flat. Nonetheless, will seek out the sequel in 2012. Recognised a young Guy Burnet (as Riley)but he was unable to add little to this movie as far as the script allowed the guy; he gifted an OK performance however, as a"tommy"fighting for King&Country. This was a standard WWII movie with good stunts and action scenes,and I spent an enjoyable Sunday afternoon viewing it - far from time wasted.

Great in it's class

[clanpainless · 8/10 · 24 June 2011]

I don't understand all those negative comments. It's a simple ww2 movie about a commando team in the making. The actors are acting good, but it never intended to be a deep Shakespeare like prizewinning movie. As war movies go, it's quite entertaining. I wasn't bored. It isn't the best movie i've seen, but it's really worthwhile.

It immediately made me think about all the dirty dozen movies, but those are more "the A-team like", this movie is more serious. I've seen almost all ww2 movies (i collect them) and this isn't one to miss.

Do not take this it to seriously, and you'll love it, if you do, you might get bored, it isn't a typical Hollywood blockbuster....

Dyer Steps up to plate

[crafty-cockney · 7/10 · 13 June 2011]

Seeing the cast list and Bean and Dyer you may have expected a stereotyped performance from both. Dyer really steps up on previous "lads" type movies or the Comedy/Horror genre such as Doghouse and Severance. Bean is fairly convincing as an experienced Officer sent back out into Operations. Good performances from Houston as the Gritty Mac and also D'Arcy as Ian Fleming. This movie will surprise many in that Dyer's performance is credible as is the whole movie. Definitely worth taking in this film, which never feels like it is dragging on. The screenplay and soundtrack are pretty much on the money. The leader of the German team that are on the heels of the Commandos is particularly convincing as the villain and has an underlying evil appearance and you sense that he will do something horrible at any moment. A decent film in most areas although the ending did seem a little light to me but wasn't out of place if that makes sense. Would like to see a lot of the cast in the follow up movie and have the distinct impression that Dyer will move on to bigger more serious roles.

Skip it.

[mhudnall · 1/10 · 6 August 2011]

I had decent hopes for this flick going into it as I am a fan of movies like 'Where Eagles Dare' and 'The Dirty Dozen', and the first half hour or so of this movie gave me hope of a similar ride. However, ten minutes or so after the bullets start flying this movie goes into the toilet. The ending was one of those 'well, we've run out of money, let's just rap this story up' scenarios. Multiple plot lines were never resolved and this movie just left me wanting to know why I had just wasted my time watching such a crappy movie. I am only thankful that I didn't try and convince my wife to watch this movie as that would have been an epic that I would have never lived down.

Not actively bad, but definitely unsatisfying

[Wizard-8 · 6 July 2013]

I am always up for a good World War II "men on a mission" movie. Emphasis on "good". This British production is quite lacking in a number of areas that at the end make the movie overall unsatisfying. The first flaw is the budget. I realize that this didn't have a Hollywood budget, and I did see that the production squeezed every last penny they had, but much of the movie looks kind of skimpy. But the movie could still have worked had it not been for the next problem - much of the movie is not exciting. After the opening action sequence, it takes forever for the next true action scene to come along. And the footage between is not very interesting - it's lacking a sense of humor, colorful characters, and original situations. Things do pick up a little in the second half of the movie due to some nice scenery and some okay action, but this material is too little and too late. While the movie isn't actively bad, it's more often than not bland, and even Brits in the audience with an interest in World War II will likely grow weary with the movie some time before the end credits start rolling.

It's hard to imagine a film based on a true story to be passionless and impersonal, but that is the case here

[TheUnknown837-1 · 6/10 · 15 January 2012]

In the fall of 2010, I spent a short time on the set of an independent film called "The Boarder," which was being shot in rural Nebraska. And one thing that I did learn while mingling amongst the technicians and actors was that even in something as aesthetically-driven as a motion picture, and with something passionate as a subject matter, it is still entirely possible for things to sour up and become impersonal. Movie-making is not easy, and the stress, I'm afraid, can wear out the artistic drive in some of us, especially if it's an early endeavor. That very well may have been the case, I'm afraid to say, with Adrian Vitoria's "Age of Heroes."

Again, it's hard to imagine a film based on a true story to be passionless and impersonal, but that is the case here. "Age of Heroes" is loosely based on a World War II British commando unit's mission to garner Germany intelligence. The particular mission was drawn up by Ian Fleming, who would later go on to write the James Bond novel series. So a story about men who risked and gave their lives, even in a shoestring budget film like this, is hard to imagine as soulless. But it is.

The way this movie is filmed, acted, scored, and executed, it's as if the filmmakers simply pulled the story out of a box full of potential stories and decided to roll along with it. Because it was their job, not because they particularly wanted to. Filming the battle scenes in this movie must have been very difficult, and unfortunately, the stress the directors and technicians had on them is apparent. It can be felt, and as a result, the scenes, meant to be white-hot, have a sort of staged, phony feeling to them.

There are worthy actors in the movie, headed by Sean Bean, but not one of them as a real part to act. What little personality they have is drawn straight out of previous war pictures. The key example is a tough commando sergeant, played with zest by William Houston; really just a pale imitation of the much-more-impressive gunnery sergeant from Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" back in 1987.

If the film can be redeemed, it is in that it does not appear to aim particularly high. It doesn't have a big goal, so it doesn't accomplish much, and the failure isn't quite as compounding as it otherwise might have been. And a brisk 94 minutes, "Age of Heroes" was already over by the time I was really starting to grow bored.

Operation Grendel

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 6 January 2017]

Age of Heroes is directed by Adrian Vitoria and Vitoria also co- writes the screenplay with Ed Scates. It stars Sean Bean, Danny Dyer, Aksel Hennie, Izabella Miko, James D'Arcy, William Houston, John Dagleish and Stephen Walters. Music is by Michael Richard Plowman and cinematography by Mark Hamilton.

Pic is based on the real life exploits of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. This telling sees a unit of Commandos sent on a mission to the mountains of Norway to knock out an important German communication tower whilst purloining information to aid the war effort.

In truth it doesn't add a great deal to an already over stocked "men on a mission" sub-genre of war films, but there's enough excitement, explosions, potent character dynamics and military shenanigans, to keep things at the better end of a viewing experience. Cast are fine, all portraying familiar types seen in countless films of this ilk, the snowy Norwegian locations are a sight for sore eyes, and Vitoria does a nice job of giving his film an old fashioned feel - complete with the obligatory Nazi atrocity to add some venomous oomph to the plotting.

The inclusion of Izabella Miko on the mission sadly comes off as a token female shoehorn job, and I agree with what other reviewers have said as regards the finale, it does feel a bit rushed as this pic definitely could have done with another 15 minutes or so. Yet being an old fashioned guy myself, I liked it well enough and was glad to have viewed it. 7/10

Disappointing & Weak Plot

[johnodq · 1/10 · 18 June 2011]

I rarely find the need to say how bad something is but this was one of the worst films I've seen in years.

It purports to be the "true story of the formation of Ian Fleming's 30 Commando unit" but very scant detail is shown about the actual training that they endure rather placing great weight on the punishment of one of the group.

At one point huge emphasise is placed on the use of daggers with a lengthy scene dedicated to the handing out of said daggers, but when it comes to combat they hardly use the daggers at all.

They are all crack shots and yet cannot hit the side of a barn at 20 yards when their lives depend on it.

If the raid went as depicted I doubt very much that the powers that be would of ever sanctioned the use of such a group ever again especially if it was anywhere near as much of a bumbling mess as depicted.

The plot has more holes that swiss cheese and although the actors do their best with an awful script & clumsy direction I found it extremely dull and annoying.

Danny Dyer is the standout performance in this film making a welcome break from his cockney wide boy image, Sean Bean is himself with a big prosthetic nose and everyone else is forgettable.

I wont go into length about the worst bit which involves the group leader getting one of his men from prison only to discover the bloke is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

I gave it 2 stars as it was better than some films I've seen but not much.

A very good true war movie that went on a little long and made me lose interest. Worth watching, but be ready. I say B-

[cosmo_tiger · 6/10 · 18 December 2011]

"Your orders were to get me home or to shoot me if you couldn't. If you stay here your gonna die & I'm not gonna shoot myself." The true story of a WWII unit that would later become England's SAS. A squad is formed to infiltrate Norway and retrieve an anti-jamming device the Nazi's have and bring it back in order to study the technology. When the mission goes south it is up to a wanna by captain to lead them to safety. This is a very good war movie, but it went on too long. I am not opposed to long movies if it holds your attention. This movie was very entertaining and exciting for about the first hour and a half, then I started to get a little bored and began to lose interest. So much so that by the time the ending happened I was disconnected with the characters and I don't think the ending had the same effect that the film makers wanted. Much like the way I felt about "The Way Back". Overall, this is a movie worth watching, but you have to be in the mood. I give it a B- (because I lost interest).

low budget dirty dozen

[perlowywyciek · 4/10 · 27 June 2011]

Well I love Sean Bean and follow him since Stormy Monday through Sharpes epic. I am also happy to see Miko (she's not much appreciated where I live. But regardless of those two this movie is so mediocre.

Acting is OK - if you won't laugh seeing Sean is waving dagger instead of sword. Shots are alright but don't expect to see 40s London or anything (low budget). Effects are... Yes there are some effects in this movie, not too many though, and mostly 2d.

What is totally awkward is the plot. Some strange training and preparations. Then endless shooting, evil Nazis doing snuff movies, shooting, explosions, more shooting, exploding Nazis. And then finale: quick as if they run out of tape (long walk to Sweden takes 5 secs). Some characters die obviously but we don't really know or see how.

To sum up: don't expect great entertainment. This movie is low budget or some kind of financial con. If you like shooting and explosions (or exploding Nazis) then rent it.

This is a good film for a UK audience

[writeus-1 · 7/10 · 2 June 2012]

I would liken it to a small but well-formed Heroes of Telemark and if you liked that you should like this.

Sean Bean and Danny Dyer are excellent, and I enjoyed the introduction of Isabella Miko. Other casting was adequate (although I would have preferred someone like Susannah York - ex Battle of Britain - for the role of Holbrook) I have a hunch that the negative reviews of this film may be from a non-UK audience; one that is not comfortable with ordinary heroes, realistic language (the F-word), and the audience being left to complete elements of the story. The ending is sufficient, and the suspense well-maintained throughout, with plenty of action - some a little more unpleasant that you might want in a 15 - but that is the nature of war. Nothing gratuitous, but nothing patronisingly anodyne.

I have watched a lot of war films over the last 50 years and this is definitely one of the better ones.

Very, very bad

[ERuis · 1/10 · 19 June 2011]

The fact that Sean Bean is a typical B/C-movie actor who takes on anything that pays money, should have been a warning to me. Bean does not screen his scripts for quality, but simply works from 9 to 5 on a movie conveyor belt. Having said that, this is not amongst his best work. Age of Heroes is one of the worst WWII-films I have ever seen. An insult to the real heroes of that age.

The story is weak, inconsistent and illogical. The characters are the worst elite soldiers ever portrayed, let alone commando's. Their decisions are weak, senseless and lack logic. The ending of the film is so crude, like there was no more money left to make a proper ending or maybe it just was 5 o'clock and time to go home to the wife...

Do not bother watching it, even if you are bored.

Age of Heroes makes my All-Time Top 10 British War Films

[imdb-91-231802 · 9/10 · 27 June 2011]

When I heard Danny Dyer say they were trying to recreate an old-school British war film with Age of Heroes I was sceptical to say the least. Even the title seemed too syrupy.

The key to the success of our classic war pictures is their sheer simplicity – films with names like The Cruel Sea and Went the Day Well? drew on simple plots and simple settings. Now, with directors able to call on the previously impossible effects of CGI, the temptation to go large must be over-whelming and in doing so that magical key might be lost.

It rarely gets simpler than my all-time second favourite Ice Cold in Alex where John Mills leads a small party to safety across the Libyan desert with the promise of an ice-cold Carlsberg as their final reward. That's the plot. And then take Virginia McKenna's under-stated portrayal of heroic SOE agent Violette Szabo in Carve Her Name with Pride, where possibly the biggest expense was the hiring of a war-surplus Lysander aircraft.

I'm not saying big is bad but when we do make them big we tend to make them messy and confused. Struggle through the cast of glitzy characters and the175 minutes of A Bridge Too Far and you start to wish the US Airborne will come and rescue you from the cinema. Obviously, there are exceptions. The five minute single-shot Dunkirk beach scene in Atonement was breath-taking and told the story better than it has ever been told before.

But if the Brits were to make a war film on the scale of Saving Private Ryan we would probably end up with a sickening celebrity fest set in a stately home where everybody has expensive flash-backs to their war gone by.

With a limited budget, Age of Heroes director Adrian Vitoria had to literally call the shots when he found the cost of blank ammunition too expensive.

"How can we compete?" he asks. "The idea for me was we can't really compete as a full-on action movie but maybe we can readdress the idea that the British were involved in the Second World War and because I have a knowledge of that period and British Commando units I thought it would be interesting to portray those units and look at their legacy - which is what we have today in Afghanistan." Danny Dyer, who plays the lovable Cockney hard-nut Corporal Rains, says he loves the film's simplicity. "There's no tricks or gimmicks. It's not Hollywood." But he was staggered to see someone counting every blank he fired. "I thought we're making a f**king war film! But it is what it is and I'm very proud of it."

With a modern take on The Dambusters in the making, more British directors are likely to seek inspiration from our current austerity and add that authentic underdog feel to the kind of films we make best.

These tend to fall into four groups: the propaganda films made during the war – Life and Death of Colonel Blimp a prime example to get us knuckling down to the new concept of Total War.

Those made immediately post-war were invariably based on officers' best-selling memoirs like Douglas Bader's Reach for the Sky or they turned excellent novels like Elleston Trevor's The Big Pick-Up into appallingly pro-Establishment cornballs like Dunkirk. But in the 1960s the tales of ordinary folk began to filter through and along came simplicity itself in The Long and the Short and the Tall and prime examples of the dogged British character with The Password is Courage . Arguably the worst of the bunch came in the 1970s when everything went Technicolor. But some stand out like the high-tension Anglo-American blockbuster The Eagle has Landed.

Director Adrian Vitoria's Age of Heroes passes muster as great British war film. To hold it up against the classics of the past is to ask a lot but it works so well on every level that it slips neatly into my All-Time Top 10.

It also bares more than a passing resemblance to another recent low-budget success. The King's Speech captured a very British sense of time, place and decency, and so does this new post-Crunch take on the British war film. Danny Dyer says the film harks back to a time when ordinary people were called on to do extraordinary things. "That's why I like the title Age of Heroes," he says. "Because that's what it was. It's about spirit and heart. Putting yourself in these situations and having to deal with it."

For my All-Time Top 10 British War Films go to:

http://civilwargb.typepad.com/alanpearce/ @AlanNPearce

Sharpe in Norway

[Sulla-2 · 7/10 · 1 August 2015]

It's a fictional story based on the exploits of the real Ian Fleming early in WW2. Fleming is an office bod who gets Major Jones ( Sean Bean) to form a small commando group for a very important mission in Nazi occupied Norway. One of his men is the rebellious but competent Danny Dyer. The acting is fine even though only a few of Major Jones' 'chosen men' seem to have a speaking part. We also have the addition of a local girl from Norway (an attractive girl obviously) Some parts are fine and some parts are a little implausible. All things considered it's a OK watch. Some of the 'chosen men' survive but only after walking a few hundred miles in the snow to Norway. The mission is accomplished but not the way it was planned.

Do not watch!!!!

[killerpuppet666 · 1/10 · 6 July 2011]

I had some hopes for this. Not very High ones. Just some hopes. But they were dashed from the opening get go.

Danny Dyer does not pull the stops out for this one. Despite what you might read. The delivery of his lines is wooden and he is so out of place. He can only play a cockney geezer from modern day London and hes best suited to sticking to that role.

Sean Beans performance is very good as always but that doesn't make the movie worth watching.

Historically the movies is very inaccurate. Not just the premise but also the uniforms, weapons, Equipment etc. (especially among the Germans) The German units are portrayed as one dimensional Psychopathic death machines thats straight out of a comic book.

Like I said the story is inaccurate to the level that they just made it up. Some of the spoken lines (especially Dyers) are so cheesy its shocking.

For a low budget film this could of been Amazing. But the people in charge of it seemingly wanted to make up there own version of history (think wild geese,Dirty dozen etc but without the fun or prestige). If they had only done some serious research into The units of WW2, There equipment and there stories a fantastic film could of been made. instead they decided to make up there own thing. Which is awful unfortunately.