William Tell (2025) | Hollywood Movie

William Tell (2025), directed by Nick Hamm, reimagines the Swiss folk hero as a brooding medieval action star in a $45 million epic that’s as grand as it is generic. Claes Bang leads with a towering, stoic presence as Tell, a huntsman turned rebel after the Austrian Habsburgs—led by a snarling Ben Kingsley—threaten his family and homeland in 1307. The apple-on-the-head shot, forced by Jonathan Pryce’s cruel Gessler, sparks a Swiss uprising, and Bang’s arrow flies true in a tense, standout moment. Jamie D. Ramsay’s widescreen vistas of South Tyrol dazzle, and Steven Price’s booming score fuels multi-stage battles that echo old-school epics.

Connor Swindells and Golshifteh Farahani add grit as comrades, but the script—penned by Hamm—leans on creaky tropes: rousing speeches, a tacked-on romance with Ellie Bamber, and a sequel-baiting fade-out. At 133 minutes, it’s a slow burn with sporadic thrills—praised on X for Bang’s gravitas and Kingsley’s menace, yet panned for predictability (61% on Rotten Tomatoes). It’s a solid, if formulaic, arrow—aimed at fans of historical derring-do, not fresh storytelling.