Not a movie?

The Pillars of the Earth (2010)

Pillars is a TV mini series that was produced by a bunch of international TV companies, it tells the story of the building of a cathedral in a fictional part of England during the The Anarchy in the 12^th century and is based on a best selling novel. I have not read the book but I sincerely hope that it is a lot better than this adaptation. 

The best thing I could say about Pillars of the Earth is that the sets, costumes and locations are pretty good. Not much TV or film gets made about the medieval period which is a real shame as there is a wealth of potential in the period. There are more wars and civil wars than you can shake a stick at, apocalyptic diseases and all sorts of other shenanigans that could make for great drama. You also have the large part that religion plays in the everyday life of all people during the period and you would think that this would be an area that Pillars draws strongly on, unfortunately there is little real investigation of the topic and it is more of a plot device than anything else.

There are clichés abound, wooden acting, terrible dialogue, ham fisted tying up of loose ends and random changes in the characters that never get explained. I really wish I could have liked this series but it leaves very little to like. For putting out 8 hours worth of piffle it is really tempting to rate Pillars as a 1/5 but as previously mentioned the production quality is good enough for a 2/5.