Boudica, Queen of War: A bloody mess that lets down Boudiccas everywhere

How would you feel hearing 100,000 people chanting your name? I know that I would hate it.

My name, when said aloud, has always sounded like a mouthful of marbles to my ears. Plus it’s happened once before in history, and it didn’t end well.

Still, hearing the cast of the film Boudica: Queen of War chanting my name is enough to make me wince. Except it’s not really my name, it’s hers.

The movie about my namesake, out on release October 30, makes do with just the one C. In its myriad forms, the name Boudicca (Tacitus spelt it with two) has travelled through the centuries with its Barbarian lilt intact.

It retains its weight in woad. Too few women have been named after the Queen of the Iceni to have diluted her story: red-haired, revenge-hungry, pyromaniacal since 61 AD.

If only a Boudicca would win the Peace Prize, we might finally see some small change for the rest of us who’ve come after.

What it is like to be called Boudicca is something I’ve written about before. That people are always curious speaks to how colossally strange the name still is. But with an origin story that fiery, it’s hardly surprising Olivia is more popular; it’s one that has captivated primary school children for generations.

The warrior queen whose client king husband dies, she is flogged by the Romans, her daughters raped. Big mistake. Boudicca raises an army of Celts, and then variously sets fire to Colchester, St Albans and London before losing everything in an almighty disorganised fist-up, Boudicca’s 100,000 Celts slaughtered by a few Romans. There are nuances within the myth/history. Was she killed in battle, fell ill or took poison? Is she under platform nine of King’s Cross station? Not something us Boudiccas are told, I’m afraid.

And while a film about Boudicca can’t offer much in the way of surprises, it’s one that has yet to reach its full cinematic potential. But as soon as her fur-clad body hits the forest floor and the credits roll, I whistle with relief. Finally I can prise my hands away from my eyes and thank the gods it’s over. Boudica’s suffering is at an end.

Mine though is a life-sentence.

I had naively hoped for a telling of her story that would change both our narratives – a Gladiator-style treatment, perhaps a few Oscar nominations. It might have finally made my name more normal. A bit like Joan. You’re more likely to think of her as wielding knitting needles than swords, despite old Joan of Arc. But a Boudicca? There’s no other cultural touchstone than the OG. The rest of us are just treading on her aura.

In the Victorian era she was a Britannia-style figure, immortalised by Tennyson as Boadicea and as a statue by Thomas Thornycroft. Still now she stands there as a reminder of the will of the people.

In my lifetime she’s been rendered in punk poetry by Toyah Wilcox and a middling TV adaptation featuring Alex Kingston. She’s also been a cruise ship.

A box-office success could do wonders for Boudiccas everywhere. Being a bit more mainstream might make us seem less, well, weird.

From the first few limbs being lopped off and throats slit, hope dwindles. Writer-director Jesse V Johnson is going for grand guignol of the straight-to-streaming variety; not the first Boudicca movie of its kind, I notice, when searching. The plot plods, the actors look fresh from the wardrobe department, the camera work is stolid, the dialogue drab. The only time it comes alive is in the fight scenes, which have a shutter-speed blitz of gore; Johnson’s early career was as a stunt performer and co-ordinator. Olga Kurylenko is radiantly beautiful pre-flogging, refreshingly and befuddlingly un-Boudicca-like. Certainly not one that the Victorians would recognise.

However, Johnson’s Celtic world has none of the magic of that rendered in Jez Butterworth’s trippy Britannia, where flame-haired Kelly Riley played a Boudicca-esque aristo. Neither is it a Peter Jackson-style romp of silliness like The Hobbit. We Boudiccas were hoping for Hollywood, but instead we’ve got TV re-enactment.

The only tension is quite how a model-esque Kurylenko will transform into a fearsome warrior. Her fellow actors turn in committed performances, particularly Nick Moran, but are let down by uninspired direction. The whole production comes off like a day-permit shoot in Epping Forest. I can almost sense the crew trailers and smell the catering truck.

While there is a quiet power to Kurylenko’s descent from client queen to barbaric rebel leader, she never quite manages to inhabit the famous queen’s extra-large proportions. It’s a shortcoming I can empathise with.

Admirable as it is to attempt a deeper psychological portrayal of Boudicca’s loss, Kurylenko stands about like someone having a bad trip on a Bear Grylls out of bounds weekend. I find myself yearning for a young Cate Blanchett, someone whose simple gaze can hold the proportions of the story.

Instead what we get is copious slash, burn and blood. Boudica; Queen of War executes as a gratuitous excuse for close-ups of limbs being chopped off and severed heads being tossed about.

I’ve no idea what market it is aimed at, but it’s probably not a 39-year-old woman called Boudicca. Sensible, given that there can’t be many of us about.

Still, Ridley Scott, if you’re reading this, we’d love you to take Boudicca on.