Neil Marshall's "The Descent" was about a group of friends who lived to take risks, and were proud of them - yet they either never lived to tell their tales, or wouldn't dare speak of them after they had survived. Here is his latest, "Centurion", which is about the legendary Ninth Legion, a group of men who risked their lives in great peril every day, and again not much of anybody knew of the dangers they faced, nor the value of their lives.
When "Centurion" opens up, we meet Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender). He's the sole survivor of some vicious raid by the Picts, the only group more savage and gruntingly brutish than his own legion. There is some introduction after the film's opening credits - complete with what's probably best known in epics as the "helicopter introductory nature shot" - whose job is to create the illusion that what's going on here involves some kind of high stakes. "AD 117. The Roman Empire stretches from Egypt to Spain, and East as far as the Black Sea". Already, the obligatory historical rundown that prefaces such a stripped down film feels out of place, trailer-ready to pander to a formula that had me wishing for more of Marshall’s unrelenting claustrophobic horror, rather than his pre-occupation with displacing it in ancient middle Earth.
Then again, there are two arguments for and against the historically prolific accessories known as "swords and sandals", and taking a pro or con stance ultimately will depend on what you value more: the part that's historical, or the part that's prolific. Return to a swords-and-sandals epic and you will find yourself in all too familiar territory:
One man - decidedly of militaristic importance and stature - lies in the center of clashes of violent dispute in ancient Rome, then finds himself torn apart by captivity, love triangles of messy sexual tension, and a moral quandary that could probably make dying on the battlefield a pleasing, more convenient alternative.
He also presumably holds his base of knowledge of the genre within the confines of those tired Roman soldier films - among them "Gladiator" and "300", - which some I imagine will find to be homage with an adept level of respect. What "Centurion" is, is an exercise in style that recycles what it perceives to be authentic, and that becomes sort of hit or miss.
To start, Neil Marshall approaches his mythology with the same kind of awe and curiosity a kid staying the night at a friend's house telling a local urban legend has. In that way, it's hard to resist. One great shot of the Legion in battle sees flaming boulders closing in from every which way, mirroring that smothering paranoid feeling Marshall managed to get from those caves in "The Descent".
Marshall clearly understands that what we can conjure up in the darkness of our imagination - whether that's a vicious throng of monsters at the bottom of an unexplored cave, or a troupe of Roman soldiers whose fate is swept of recorded documentation - is most compelling when placed in a fragment of reality; the journey of backpacking young women or the waging battles of the vast Roman empirical struggle. Where the film falls flat, is when that aura within the context of historical legend becomes essentially removed, replacing something so potentially rich in lore with highly stylized limb-hacking choreography. Translated into horror, that paranoid hysteria is most effective when unexplained, but in “Centurion” the action begs explanation.
The film's strictly black and white characters also have a curious way of glossing over anything reminiscent of real dimension. Many of them, including Roman-epic veteran Dominic West as General Titus Flavius Virilus (there’s a mouthful) act as pawns in some cruel game rather than human beings. Marshall no doubt relished in the opportunity to dress down, ugly up and make a brute out of Olga Kurylenko, here playing Etain, the merciless and deaf Pict warrior whose makeup looks plucked out of a missing Joel Schumacher “Batman” installment. We’re told at some point that her motive is vengeance on behalf of her murdered family. I had trouble seeing more than the anger and brooding called for in an almost entirely silent and wasted role.
What I found myself repeatingly asking was a matter of the great moments that could arise out of a story willing to report unwritten history. Was every Pict simply a ruthless sadist? Every Roman a man of honor and glory? Where are those Romans whom secretly despised the civilization that forced them to fight to fatten their emperor, instead of blindly obeying it? When will we see a movie about them? Or maybe with "Centurion" we have, we just haven't seen it illustrated in any way beyond ancient Roman, swear-injected fraternizing and the bonding through their bloodshed that’s become so commonplace in a marketplace dominated by the interests of the modern bro-dude’s Facebook page.
The film's Video-On-Demand offering - compatible with video game consoles Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 - illustrates pretty clearly the audience Marshall's film will be tapping into. Sure, some pumped up, avid gamers hooked on a role playing game like God of War would likely enjoy taking a break from their game-play to download it on their consoles and watch it re-enacted, and "Centurion" is a well made representation of its own cornered genre. It is lean, concise fare whose business is fetishizing brawny, overbearing male archetypes and their exploits, which mainly consist of pillaging, mutilation and total conquest. My question watching was, didn't we just get all that playing the game?
★★☆☆☆ (2.5/5)
Cast & Credits
Centurion Quintus Dias: Michael Fassbender
Commander Gratus: Andreas Wisniewski
Vortix: Dave Legendo
Aeron: Axelle Carolyn
General Titus Flavius Virilus: Dominic West
Etain: Olga Kurlenko
Magnet Releasing Presents a Film Written and Directed by Neil Marshall. Running time: 97 minutes. Rated R (For Sequences of Strong Bloody Violence, grisly images and language).
You can find this review, its supplemental materials, as well as other extensive film coverage at EInsiders.com.
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