Multi-franchise anchoring action hero, hunky heartthrob, Three Stooges fan, producer/director, inebriated Anti-Semite... the nearly 30-year career of Aussie actor Mel Gibson has been quite the roller coaster.

With his piercing blue eyes and chiseled features and dangerous wild streak, he quickly made an impression on audiences in the early 80's as the star of director George Miller's nihilistic Mad Max trilogy as well as honing his dramatic chops in a pair of intelligent Peter Weir dramas (Gallipoli, The Year Of Living Dangerously) before making boatloads of cash as one half (with Danny Glover) of the bickering black/white buddy cop team of the lucrative Lethal Weapon series. By the early/mid-90's, Gibson had attained a well-earned status of one of the most consistently bankable male actors in Hollywood.

Like pretty much every star who's attained his current state of fame and fortune in knockabout blockbuster fare, Gibson eventually yearned for more "respectable" projects, like taking on the role of the Melancholy Dane in Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 version of Hamlet and finally stepping behind the camera for the first time on the intelligent, little-seen 1993 teacher/student drama The Man Without A Face (even going so far as to paste half of his famously gorgeous mug with ugly burn scar makeup that made him resemble Batman baddie Two-Face). However, these were but mere prelude to the ambitious project that would finally turn him into a true actor/director/producer hybrid mogul, 1995's Scottish epic Braveheart.

Opening in Scotland circa 1280, we're introduced to a wee, young William Wallace (James Robinson), who's idyllic life as a farmer's son is shattered when his father and older brother both perish in battle against the cruel King of England, Edward "Longshanks" The 1st (a sneering Patrick MaGoohan), who's forces currently occupy Scotland. Many years later, Wallace has grown into a hunky dreamer (Gibson) who, despite his past, has little in stake with the current "Troubles" and only wishes to settle down and raise a family in peace. Returning to his childhood village, he quickly catches the eye of Murron (Catherine McCormick), a comely peasant lass who gave him the gift of a thistle at his father and brother's funeral years before. Wallace and Murron court and marry in secret, not only to avoid unpleasantness with her disapproving father but also to be spared the cruel English decree of Primae Noctis, which allows British lords to have sexual relations with newly-wed Scottish brides on their wedding night in an attempt to insinuate British bloodlines into Scottish families. But when their marriage is discovered and Murron is killed in retaliation for Wallace's rage at at attempted rape, Wallace suddenly is given a bitter, personal stake in the current British occupation.

Wallace stages a bloody slaughter of the British garrison stationed in his village, personally murdering the captain who slit his dead love's throat, but can't simply let that be enough. Knowing that he's now a marked man, he sees a new destiny unfolding before him; to unite like-minded Scots across the country to fight back against their British oppressors and take their precious freedom back, no matter the cost. Like Robin Hood, his exploits quickly begin to attain the larger-than-life aspects of a tale tale (when a new recruit in his ragtag army takes a knee before him, Wallace quips "Get up, man, I'm not the bloody Pope"), and as news of his successful guerrilla tactics on the battlefield and sacking of numerous British-occupied cities within Scotland begins to spread, King Edward finds himself in a dilemma.

Seems Eddie isn't in the best of health, and the combination of Wallace's growing forces and the sham marriage of his ineffectual, homosexual son, Edward (Peter Hanly), to Princess Isabelle of France (future Bond Girl Sophie Marceu), begins to take it's inevitable toll. With the prospects of a new heir to the throne in jeopardy, King Edward's health begins to steadily decline even as Wallace's forces gain ground...but Wallace's allegiance to Robert The Bruce (Angus MacFadyen), the heir to the Scottish throne, may end up being his downfall, even as Princess Isabelle becomes enchanted by the romanticized image of Wallace as a man bringing the British Empire to it's knees over the loss of his dead sweetie.

When it was first released in 1995, Braveheart was something that audiences hadn't seen in a good, long while... a lavish, old-fashioned epic that recalled the sweeping vistas and teeming hordes of extras of 60's films like Lawrence Of Arabia and Sparta. Viewing it now a dozen years later, it now feels like the last of the "old-school" epics before digital technology began to radically change the landscape of cinema. Gibson stages some logistically spectacular battle sequences, and despite using computers to replicate a cast of hundreds into a cast of thousands, we're still looking at actual people out there bashing each other's heads in with maces and broadswords, instead of the digital stuntmen of the later epic films that would follow in Braveheart's footsteps, like Gladiator and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. You can also detect the kind of organized chaos and jumpy editing tricks that Steven Spielberg would later adopt on his WWII film Saving Private Ryan.

That said, despite the film's abundant visceral pleasures, the screenplay by Randall Wallace (no relation) is surprisingly blunt and sketchy for a nearly three-hour film. The death of Murron might have had more impact if we had been allowed to enjoy her courtship with Wallace longer, instead of her getting killed immediately following her clandestine wedding. In it's current, short form, it simply plays to the bizarre, recurring motif in Gibson movies featuring murdered/mutilated wife/girlfriend characters who serve little purpose but to fuel his anguished revenge. Similarly, it's tough to buy Princess Isabelle's near-instant infatuation with Wallace. Yeah, she's trapped in a loveless sham of a marriage, and yeah, Wallace looks like Mel Gibson, but she gets tumbled into the sack by Wallace after only meeting him once. That's the kind of narrative shorthand that's unintentionally comic. Lastly, another Gibson fetish - gruesomely protracted torture sequences - rears it's head as the film reaches it's climax, with a captured Wallace refusing to bow to Longshanks' will and being sentenced to an agonizing, public execution, with Gibson ladling on the Christ metaphors with a trowel (of course, the actual torture depicted here actually pales next to Gibson's next feature as director, 2004's controversial box office smash The Passion Of The Christ).  

That said, for it's flaws, Braveheart remains an impressive piece of filmmaking, full of blood and thunder battle sequences and dazzling Scottish scenery. Say what you will about Gibson as an actor or a man, but he's a natural born director with a distinct eye, and Braveheart is a film that remains compelling to this day.

Presentation
The film's 2:35.1 aspect ratio is presented in an immaculate print preserving John Toll's misty, Oscar-winning cinematography. Now given an entire disc to itself, the picture quality is mostly excellent, with little in the way of speckles or dirt. The Oscar-winning 5.1 English audio (with additional tracks in French 5.1 and Spanish 2.0) gives plenty of low-end "oomph" to the film's many battle sequences, with whizzing arrows, thudding body blows, and screams and bellows coming through with excellent, room-filling clarity. James Horner's monotonously mournful score grows tiresome after a while, however, with the relentless use of bagpipes, pennywhistles and all the other obligatory "celtic" musical cliches growing irritating, often dampening the effect of otherwise emotionally draining sequences.

Extras
The new 2-disc SE (supplanting a 1-disc affair from seven years back) offers a fair amount of new goodies in addition to leftovers from the previous edition, including an absolutely horrible audio commentary with director/star Mel Gibson, who mumbles his way through barely an hour's worth of the entire movie, and when he does finally say anything, it's either fawning praise of his tech crew, blankly reciting what's happening on-screen, or cracking lame jokes (as Murron is about to be raped by an English soldier, "Gee, I guess 'no means no', huh?"). Whatever mild points of interest Gibson does manage to impart are mostly repeated in disc two's supplements, starting off with A Writer's Journey (21:29), a sit-down with screenwriter Randall Wallace that's surprisingly honest about the process. This is followed by the new documentary Alba Gu Brath! The Making Of Braveheart, a trio of featurettes (Reviving A Genre, The Heat Of Battle and Worth The Fight) that runs a combined 49:59 and contains footage about the massive logistical challenges Gibson undertook, how he was unable to get the film financed unless he starred in it, many scenes featuring Gibson and editor Steven Rosenbloom fine-tuning the first major battle sequence (often taking frames out to make certain moments seem even more violent), James Horner conducting the score, and much more. It's a very thorough program that fans of the film will enjoy a good deal. Recycled from the original disc is Tales Of William Wallace (29:58), a History Channel-type piece full of cheesy narration looking at the few known facts about Wallace's life and death. Archival Interviews With The Cast Of Braveheart (14:34) offers fluffy, EPK soundbites from the time of the film's production with James Robinson, Catherine McCormick, Brendan Gleeson, James Cosmo, David O'Hara, Angus MacFadyen, Patrick McGoohan, Peter Hanek and Sophie Marceau. Photo Montage (6:28) features still photos of the production backed by Horner's film score. Lastly, there's a pair of Theatrical Trailers (1:35, 2:50), the latter of which is bizarrely scored by Mark Mancina's music to Speed! Amazingly, there's no deleted scenes menu, unforgivable for a film where Gibson claims in the commentary to have edited out more than 20 minutes of footage.

Final Thoughts
Braveheart is a visually stunning epic that glances off of true greatness via some unforgivable narrative lapses, yet this Best Picture winner is still a must-see due to it's often-amazing depictions of warfare and compelling dissections of the potency of personal sacrifice. It's also perhaps the last true epic to not be completely overrun by digital trickery.