Starring James Franco and Sophia Myles. Rated 14A. For showtimes, please see page 67

What's with Kevin Reynolds and the Irish anyway?

After incongruously cluttering up Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with a horde of subhuman Celtic warriors apishly lusting after the blood of good clean Saxons, this sometime Texas lawyer has now created the most anti-Hibernian version of Tristan & Isolde yet.

Eschewing the early French and German renditions of this age-old myth, Reynolds and screenwriter Dean Georgaris have left us with a demystified, dragonless romance in which a disorganized proto-England must get its political shit together in order to defeat an eternally treacherous Ireland if it is ever to become a nation worthy of the name. If nothing else, this film made me realize how First Nations viewers must feel every time they see a western wherein small parties of "disadvantaged" white settlers are "forced" to do battle with far more powerful hordes of ruthless "savages". Even the knowledge that the Irish did half-colonize Scotland, occupy Wales for a few years, and raid the British coast for several centuries takes little of the sting out of this outrageously revisionist account of Anglo-Irish history.

Medieval enthusiasts won't be any happier than hard-core historical purists by the director's excessive liberties. In addition to the already mentioned absent dragon, the love philtre that dooms Cornish Tristan (James Franco) and Irish Isolde (Sophia Myles) to mutual attraction is also missing, as is the sword in the bed that Tristan uses to curb his desire for Isolde, King Mark's intended. Perhaps most heretically of all, the ruler of Cornwall (Rufus Sewell), here demoted to the rank of Lord Marke, is the nicest cuckold ever to wear a pair of horns, being entirely bereft of the ruthlessness that at least partially justified his betrayal in the past.

As for the incidental pleasures, the production design is quite good and the anachronisms, though plentiful, are rarely jarring (with the exception of the still-thriving paganism that we see being practised in sixth-century Irish and Cornish courts). The fights are reasonably well choreographed, and the acting is quite acceptable (although the only truly excellent performance is given by Sewell).

If you care nothing at all for myth, medieval literature, or historical veracity, you might actually enjoy the little that's left of one of the world's greatest romantic tragedies: a technically competent, minor costume drama.