Would not want to be an extra or a horse in this
I watched this, despite the hammy performances and overwrought and plodding story line, because I read that the battle scenes were especially intense. The impression I got was yes . . . intensely cruel.
You can see exactly why trip lines became illegal in the US and elsewhere. It looks like several horses broke their necks. Not much more care seems to have been taken with the human battle extras, who are flipping and flopping every which way and taking all kinds of impacts. It doesn't add up to greater verisimilitude, just a desperate attempt to outdo predecessors. Then you have the "subjective camera angle" during the charges. Sounds like a good idea but it looks exactly like a camera mounted on a jeep driving through a crowd of extras trying like the devil to get out of its way.
If you are a Britfilm fan like me or a war film buff then you are going to see this no matter what, but it doesn't rate very high in my book. LAWRENCE and ZULU are the best in this genre.