First, the movie begins with some new historical info as if that's some kind of justification for making the movie the way they did, as if this tripe was based on any kind of fact (they threw away most of the legend, so I guess they thought they had to have something to take its place).
Spoiler
And then you have the story being narrated by a dead guy, though it's no surprise he dies considering he asks to be burned instead of buried about ten minutes into the movie.
There is no artistry to the battle scenes (with the exception of the female fighters, but the overt attempt at sex appeal diminishes even that). All flash and gore.
The dialogue and writing is barely at the 8th grade reading level. The plot reads like a video game. You can see the writer thinking, "Should we copy Braveheart, Gladiator, or LotR for this part?" There are so many cheesy lines I lost count.
I feel sorry for the main cast, since they seemed to be decent actors (and yea, verily and forsooth, Keira Knightly is hot), considering what was handed to them. The cinematography (if you don't count dozens of entirely useless, pandering clips) was pretty good, too. But please, please don't think that's any kind of recommendation to see this movie. If this hadn't been a free rental, I would've demanded my money back. As it is, that's two hours of my life wasted.
Yeah, this was as bad a movie as any. My impression of its creation was this: 
