Climbing Higher Pictures

It wouldn’t be a summer movie slate without somebody wielding a sword. Sure it looks equal parts Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and King Arthur, but Neil Marshall’s latest hopes to reinstate the swords and sandals epic as a viable summer tent-pole. Does it have what it takes to make you forget about Alexander and Troy?

Centurion Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: B

Welcome to Britain in 117AD. The great Roman empire is nearing the end of its conquest of the known world, and has come up to a roadblock in the form of the Picts. Using guerrilla tactics, they have been able to halt the Roman advance almost entirely, and as the winter months wear on, word comes down from the Roman high command for a full frontal assault, courtesy of the renowned 9^th Legion, to wipe the Pict scourge from the land and kill their leader, Gorlacon. Thrown into the mix is a young man named Quintus (Fassbender) who was saved by the Legion and intends to aide in their move into Pict territory as a de-facto protagonist.

This is the setting of Neil Marshall’s Centurion, and if it reminds you of some of the great period piece epics of old, that is by design. Coming off of the fan-boy embraced but critically flogged Doomsday, the director, most notably of the horror film The Descent, embarks on new territory here, treating the audience to a vast ancient wilderness and the journeys that the characters face within it. When the legion in ambushed in the forest, only a small group remains, and it wouldn’t be a far stretch to imagine the film as a cross between Gladiator and Behind Enemy Lines. You’ve seen chase films before, but when was the last time it was Roman soldiers getting chased by anything? Therein lies much of the originality, and energy of the film, and as Olga Kurylenko hunts down the remaining soldiers across the land, we are given a bit of a moviemaking history lesson, with every variation of an edge-of-your-seat tension moment making an appearance. It’s a tightly edited film, despite its setting, and comes in at just over an hour and a half. Because of this, it never overstays its welcome, but also skimps out on a lot of the character development you’d hope to get.

That’s not to say the script is bad by any means. In fact, it flows better than most, and even though you have the sneaky suspicion that important moments lie on the cutting room floor, there’s more than enough sustenance to get by. The real problem is with the narration. It’s one of those head hanging things that had to have grown from a good intention somewhere down the line, and has ballooned into a nightmare scenario here. Opening and closing voice over in a feature film can work fine. Even that is often hard to get right, as voice over dialogue walks a fine line between feeling cheesy and irrelevant. Here the narration continues throughout the film, often acting as repetition for the thoughts and emotions which the main character is already clearly displaying. Perhaps the studio didn’t think Michael Fassbender’s acting could support the whole film, I’m not really sure. All I know is that the air is let out of the room every time the voice begins to speak again, and it gets very, very close to ruining the experience.

What you do get is a fun road movie complete with all the blood and gore you could ever want. Seriously, the red stuff is flying fast and furiously here, enough so to even cause this desensitized reviewer to flinch on several occasions. The realism and the gritty nature of the movie work on its behalf rather beautifully at times, and its nice to see this kind of wholehearted passion on display in a Hollywood landscape which has grown steadily more corporate and sterile in recent years. I applaud the effort, and wish that studios would be willing to take more chances like this. Sure the movie isn’t the second coming of swords and sandals epics, but that doesn’t stop it form being a wholly satisfying one, and like I mentioned before, these days that’s saying a lot. I’ve heard rumor that they’re going to make the film available ahead of its theatrical release on Xbox 360 and PS3. If that’s true, then console owners, this is one pay-per-view purchase which is definitely worth renting with some friends.