Virgin Territory (2007)

This nice, mild version the extremely bawdy Decammeron Nights, was so lightly thought of, it was released directly to DVD in the US.

The only reason for the R rating is the a few of the ladies busts are shown,& some suggestive dialogue as same ladies are milking a cow over the clothed body of our hero. What this movie really needed (since the guys are so handsome),was at least a suggestion of some male sex (which was in the original stories). There also should have been at least one whipping or torture scene, or suggestion of. THe above ladies were supposed to be nuns, to me they were not.

Hayden Christensen (Star Wars 2 & 3) is not bad as our stalwart young hero. Mischa Barton is delightful as our pure heroine. Matthew Rhys as a Russian suitor is a comic find,( his character has a very long hard to pronounce name) He rattles this name & his lineage a few times & never misses a beat.

In fact the entire cast is a delight,The script & direction was by David Leland and is good. The settings are beautiful. This is not a great film or even a good adaptation,it is just an enjoyable pleasant,not bawdy enough treatment.

Ratings: *** (out of 4) 83 points (out of 100) IMDb 7 (out of 10)

Fmovies: I laughed (out loud) once. I hardly think that constitutes a 'comedy' for me.

There are a few witty one-liners, and a touch of situational humor, but most of the humor is pretty stale and dry. I think they were trying for something along the lines of The Princess Bride, but missed the mark entirely.

There were a few sword-fights, but that hardly supports an entire 'adventure', and the plot was utterly formulaic and you could see 10 minutes ahead of the film at any given point.

As for the romance, well, the ONE romantic idea present in the film just wasn't enough to qualify it for a romance film either.

My hat is off to anyone who can find an ounce of drama in this movie either...

So, what is it? Something to pass the time if you literally have nothing else to do. As I mentioned before, I'd recommend watching the Princess Bride if you haven't, or watching it again, rather than watch this.

I gave it three stars because the acting wasn't terrible, there were those witty one-liners, and I did manage to laugh once.

As a big fan of classic swashbucklers i wasn't expecting much of this movie and because of that I liked it very much. It's very low budget, but has some decent sword fights. Besides that its filled with beautiful women (actually beautiful) and yes, quite some nudity. But in a non-offensive and quite charming way. Mischa Barton is looking great as a historical figure (better than perfect-teeth Keira Knightley in PotC, P&P) and Hayden is quite good with his sword and a better swashbuckling hero than for example Heith Ledger in Casanova or Orlando Bloom. the movie is just great fun. its highly entertaining with the simple stuff: swords and love. i enjoyed it a lot. Actually the first entertaining swashbuckler of the 21st century.

Virgin Territory fmovies. "Virgin Territory" is a silly, lame and unfunny film, where the sexy women and their breasts are the only entertainment (at least for the male viewer). The plot is a complete mess with scenes without any explanation. For example, why is Elissa naked in a lake seducing the Russian count? Or when Pampinea felt in love with Lorenzo? There is no chemistry between them. The narrative is also boring. Why Tim Roth and Hayden Christensen (after performing Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars) accepted to work in this film is the greatest question. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Território Virgem" ("Virgin Territory")

I really wanted to like this film but instead I'm bemused as to how David Leland managed to make such a mess. The plot is scrappy at best, there are far too many characters you are supposed to care about you end up caring about none, it's never clear who or what the film is really about, the acting is below par and the nudity is gratuitous.

The love affair between Lorenzo (Hayden Christensen) and Pampinea (Mischa Barton) is implausible and you can't help but feel that something is missing from the beginning of this film to help ground their relationship in something other than the odd coy glance. The acting isn't terrible but it is unforgivable in key places, in particular whenever Barton and Christensen kiss, which feel so forced and unnatural that it makes me wonder if Barton's real life boyfriend was on set watching.

I wouldn't call this film a comedy however there are some very odd moments where it seems comedy is the intention but it just doesn't work. For example a cameo from David Walliams would be welcome in any comedy but in Virgin Territory it just doesn't seem to fit - his zany exploits are mistimed and misjudged.

Also, there are many moments that defy all logic (what is Elissa suddenly doing in a lake on her own?) and a part me thinks that Leland was maybe trying to create a film that felt something akin to The Princess Bride. He failed, and he failed because I think he was also trying to create a film that felt like Zoro, or Sense and Sensibility, or Carry on Camping, or American Pie, or...in fact I don't think even Leland knew what he was trying to do.

The sexual elements are also misplaced with one or two moments where it seems Leland was gunning for the gross-out-teenage-sexual-angst genre. He fails again, falling well short of what we're used to and only confusing the audience further.

There are some facets of this film I did like: the film is pretty well shot and the scenery in many scenes is a joy. I found Count Dzerzhinsky (Matthew Rhys) a welcome light relief and his character by far the most interesting and Christopher Egan did a fantastic job of portraying Dioneo as the unhinged antagonist. However, these things could never make up for a film that really doesn't know what it's doing, which is a shame because it did have potential.

I found this film on the shelves of a French hypermarket on a day trip to Calais. Presented in the same font and style as the 'American Pie' films, I have to say that the local French title "Medieval pie - Territoires vierges" did stand out, which was possibly the intention of the DVD marketing company, trying to trade on the success of a similar and more successful series of teen comedy films. Even now, after the event, I'm still not sure whether any of the cast or crew of 'Medieval Pie' have any involvement with the 'American Pie' franchise at all. I'm doubtful. I get the feeling that this movie will be known under a variety of titles in a variety of markets, and that alone should set the alarm bells ringing in the heads of most sane movie reviewers.

There are a few familiar faces on display. Hayden Christensen, Mischa Barton and Tim Roth are the three most obvious 'names', with 'Little Britain's' David Walliams appearing in a blink-and-you'll-almost-miss-him cameo. The main problem is that all these actors are playing characters with hard-to-remember names. Barton is Pampinea, Christensen is Lorenzo (who for some reason masquerades as a deaf-and-dumb gardener in a convent where for some reason all the nuns have sex with him, a central joke that gets tired very quickly, even with all the nudity) while Roth is the main villain, Gerbino de la Ratto. I was rather more impressed with Matthew Rhys' Russian Count Dzerzhinsky, who rattled off his name and lineage on several occasions without missing a beat - I could have done with a memory like that to remember exactly who was who. It was a struggle at times.

My favourite scene was probably when the two women who get captured (Rosalind Halstead & Kate Groombridge I believe) try and escape by tricking their guards into dropping their trousers and lining up in order of size and then creating an argument about whether you start small and work up, or start large and work down (or even start in the middle!). That was fun. The main love story involving Barton and her three suitors (Christensen, Roth and Rhys) is perhaps not so successful, and the less said about the sex-obsessed nuns the better. It's an old fantasy for sure, imagining what nuns get up to behind closed convent doors, but not especially original.

I've seen worse comedies for sure - anything involving Aaron Seltzer & Jason Friedberg for one thing, but I have seen better too. I suppose for the genre it represents, this sits somewhere in the middle of the pack, so even though it did bypass the cinemas and go straight-to-DVD, it's not really that bad. It deserves one viewing at least, but whether it will hold up to multiple screenings is much less certain. I'm not sure it will. I guess what I'm really saying, is wait until the sales - don't pay full price for it - unless you have a thing about nuns getting naked, in which case this is a 10/10 movie for sure. For me though, it's just a five.