It’s only the middle week in January and two films are released on the same date that could just end up being two of the worst films of 2025. One is Emmanuel, a reboot of the infamous 1974 soft porn film and the other is William Tell.
Badly acted, badly scripted and just plain bad William Tell wants to be so many things and ends up being memorable for all the wrong reasons. How Director John Hamm manages to add a feminist all female fight that could be straight out of a Bollywood film into a film about a Swiss hero is anyone’s guess.
The plot begins, in the 14th century, with William Tell (Claes Bang) shooting an apple from his sons head, given that’s probably all anyone knows about the legendary character it’s probably as good place as any to start. Then before his arrow can fly we’re transported back three days so that the story can now start from its natural beginning.
Tell is Swiss and his country is being ruled over by an evil Austrian King (a gold eye patch wearing Ben Kingsley). When one of the Swiss peasants kills an Austrian tax collector Tell takes it upon himself, this is a man of honour after all, to help the killer and for his good turn he ends up being hunted by the Austrian army who are led by the Kings evil henchman (Connor Swindells). Throw in other characters, (played by actors who should know better including Jonathan Pryce, Emily Beecham and Rafe Spell who throughout the entire film has an expression on his face that indicates that he might need a good dose of laxatives) who meet up with Tell in his quest to free his country and what we end up with is a poor man’s Braveheart.
William Tell has nods to numerous films, From Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood to Disney’s Brave to The Sound of Music to Lord of the Rings there appears to be no film that director Nick Hamm won’t steal ideas from. Sadly William Tell isn’t a patch on any of the previous mentioned films and the scariest thing of all is that the end sets the story up for a sequel.