'Attila' miniseries a barbaric monstrosity

It's finally happened: I've stopped being fazed by historical inaccuracies in movies. I used to get angry when historical dramas took dishonest dramatic licenses, like when Leonardo DiCaprio's "The Man in the Iron Mask" claimed that Louis XIV was France's most beloved and benevolent king.\nBut last week, I just sat back and watched USA's miniseries "Attila." I didn't mind that accuracy took a back seat in this chronicle of the life of Attila the Hun. Instead, I spent four hours watching men with swords yelling, "AAARRRGGGHHHH!"\nMaybe I could watch "Attila" because I know so little about Attila the Hun, other than he was the role model for former Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo. Or perhaps I sat through the entire thing because they've upped my dose of Risperdal to 1 mg, which means I can enjoy anything, even stubbing my toe and falling down a flight of stairs.\nWatch me laugh as I explode a zit on my nose with a nail clipper: Ha ha!\nFor whatever reason, I spent four hours of my life watching "Attila" -- four hours I can never get back. And in hindsight, "Attila" was not worth my time. The miniseries was lavishly produced, offering swooping crane shots of countless battle scenes. But it also feels hollow and contrived, like 1998's "Godzilla."\nFirst of all, everyone in "Attila" looks and sounds out of place. Whether they be Gauls, Goths or Huns, all the barbarians look like the villagers in "Fiddler on the Roof" dropped into the movie "Conan the Barbarian" wearing old Soviet army uniforms.\nI think that the miniseries' producers also spent so much money on battle scenes that they couldn't afford a dialogue coach. Some characters had English accents, others had an Irish brogue, like a witch at the beginning who was a composite of the three witches in "Macbeth."\nPowers Boothe, who plays Roman General Flavius Aetius, aka "Effluvium," sounds out of place with his soft-spoken, southern style of speaking when everyone around him recites clipped, declarative sentences.\nAnd Gerard Butler, who plays Attila, slips into a New York accent every now and then. At one point, Attila tells his uncle that he has been inside Roman territory, and "Dere's no legions!" Butler must have studied under Tony Curtis, who proclaimed with a thick Brooklyn accent in "The Black Shield of Falworth," a campy medieval epic, "Yonda is the castle of my fadda."\nNow down to the nitty-gritty: The miniseries is too long. The first two hours are about Attila's rise to power. We don't get to know much about Attila the man, but we do get to see that he had great pecs.\nActually, there's just one scene where he has a terrific chest. For the rest of the miniseries, he has flabby man-breasts like Bob in "Fight Club."\nAnd in establishing Attila as a mythic figure, the miniseries unrepentantly borrows from other myths. Attila comes to the Huns as a savior -- the Jesus myth. He is also in search of the war god's sword. Even though Attila did think he had found the god's sword after he became supreme ruler of the Huns, the miniseries refers to the legend of King Arthur.\n"Attila" also bears a striking resemblance to the ancient German epic "Die Niebelungenlied," which portrayed Attila the Hun as a shepherd of the peoples. Both works show the Hun king as a strong, just man who demands loyalty. And both "Die Niebelungenlied" and "Attila" climax with former friends forced into fighting each other.\n"The miniseries steals mercilessly from other movies too. The pitched battle scenes have that strangely hypnotic appeal that grips your attention, like Bob Ross' "The Joy of Painting." But they are also pulled straight out of "Braveheart."\nQuestion: How can you equate the movie version of William Wallace, portrayed as a freedom-fighter in "Braveheart," with Attila the Hun, whose goal was to conquer and enslave the world?\nIt seems appropriate that the life of the man who was deemed "the scourge of God" in his day should be portrayed on the USA network, a plague worse than anything Pharaoh endured. I hope "Attila" will bankrupt USA, which will go down like the great Hun king.