Centurion

[Faust23]

Just watched it today. Badass.

[Plynkes]

Just watched it 9 months ago. Ass-bad.

[Steve F]

Wasn't Ass-bad a supporting character in Noggin the Nog?  Assbad the Bad, that was it ...  

[Plynkes]

I thought he was Assbad the Sailor, Sinbad's little-known cousin.

[Mad Doc Morris]

Just watched it today. Badass.

Care to expatiate? If the movie isn't worth more than a one-liner, it probably isn't worth a topic as well.
Haven't seen it, a bit too gory for my liking. However, from what I've gathered, the Roman costume looked more convincing than those for "The Eagle".

[Faust23]

Sure. If you like violence its there. In fact, the fight scenes use a very interesting method of showing hit after hit from many different combats that I found amped up the fight scenes nicely.  A little slow in parts, but overall a great 'skirmish' movie. 

Beats Prometheus all to hell! 

[aecurtis]

Plynkes for the win.  It was silly.  Just silly.



"Oi, lads!  We're going to be marching into an ambush, so load yer pila onto the wagons and draw ordinary hastae.  That'll set them Hollywood blue-painted barbarians straight!"





Rosemary (Sutcliff) of Blessed Memory must have been rolling in her grave at that one--although perhaps she also did when Marcus Flavius Aquila became a male stripper...

Allen

[Plynkes]

I only watched it because Olga Kurylenko was in it. But she was stupid and annoying, and so her presence wasn't enough to make me watch all of it. I drank some Tequila, read a book about Basque history, and fell asleep in a drunken haze instead. That was much more fun than sitting through any more of this stupid film.

[aecurtis]

Care to expatiate? If the movie isn't worth more than a one-liner, it probably isn't worth a topic as well.
Haven't seen it, a bit too gory for my liking. However, from what I've gathered, the Roman costume looked more convincing than those for "The Eagle".

Sainted Rosemary clearly indicated that Marcus was a centurion of auxilia, and even the film identified the unit as the "Fourth Cohort of Gauls", which would have been *attached* to Legio II.  Well, if it hadn't actually been stationed *on* the wall and elsewhere in the North, historically.  And if it hadn't actually been a cohors equitata... but no matter.

The brilliant directorial and design team apparently thought that auxilia wouldn't look Roman enough, so hauled out the usual Cinecitta stash of leather armor, and gave the auxiliary troopers pila and the semi-cylindrical scutum.  Plus scythed chariots for the Britons.  Quite the mash-up.

But at least the script stayed fairly true to the novel, except for the annoying diversions every five minutes or so.  And the utterly silly appearance of the Seal People.  But at least it started to break the mold of having cinematic Romans speaking in Received English.  So you have Marcus and Uncle Aquila sounding quite American; a Brigante with a completely anachronistic Scots accent; and the Seal People speaking Irish Gaelic.  Insane.

Heck, just stick a couple of electrodes in the ground in the churchyard where Rosemary lies.  You could power half of Dorset.

Allen

[Plynkes]

 But at least it started to break the mold of having cinematic Romans speaking in Received English.  

Yes, dodgy African accents are all the rage these days.



Interestingly, those guys doing the African accents are mostly British actors whose normal speaking voices are very much R.P.

[Steve F]

Interestingly, those guys doing the African accents are mostly British actors whose normal speaking voices are very much R.P.

And in places (if we're talking about Julius Caesar here, they had real difficulty combining those accents with the cadences of the language.  Which is a pity, as the production had some fine aspects - an unusually sympathetic Cassius, for one, and an interesting emphasis on the parallels in the way that both Caesar and Brutus believe that their personalities can allow them to defy fate and human nature alike.

By the way, can we please have a moritarium for at least a decade on setting scenes from Tudor and Jacobean plays in abandoned industrial buildings?  It is now even more clichéd than it is inappropriate.

... a completely anachronistic Scots accent ...

But, then again, there are no accents that wouldn't be anachronistic.  It's a question of combining internal consistency with appropriate associations, I suppose.  Which brings us back to RP, of course, which was adopted by the BBC to transcend the barriers erected within Britain by class and regional accents, but ended up being classed as "posh" by the mockney-speaking upper-middle-class ex-public schoolboys who now run the corporation.

[guitarheroandy]

I have long since abandoned any attempt to watch any 'Roman' film with my 'historical knowledge' head on.

Given that fact, I thought Centurion was highly entertaining and well worth the 4 quid I spent on it from the bargain bin at Sainsbury's. It kept me entertained for the evening with its gory action scenes and typical 'chase movie' theme. And nowt wrong with that. And so did 'The Eagle, despite my love of everything Rosemary Sutcliff has written and the film's obvious 'flaws'.

If you want historical accuracy, obviously go ANYWHERE else (and probably avoid prety much every 'Roman' fim EVER!!), but for a film you can watch without thinking about it too much even after the shittiest day at work (which was when I watched both movies, actually) it's fine... Just don't pay full price for it 

[aecurtis]

"But, then again, there are no accents that wouldn't be anachronistic."

Ah, but one could--if one wished--generate dialogue in Latin (as it was most likely actually spoken) and a reconstructed early Old Brythonic, accompanied by subtitles.

 

Allen

[Lowtardog]

Seal People, now they really wanted clubbing, I thought I was watching Last of the Mohicans at one point

Saying that King Arthur was no better with the Woad!!!!!! wtf and I even watched a historian who advised on that film completely convinced Arthur was a Leader of Auxillary Cavalry on the wall (as some indications may have it. He must have been laughed out of whichever university he taught at

[LeadAsbestos]

King Arthur-bad, Centurion-worse, The Eagle-not total crap like those 2, but close!

My guilty pleasure? Tristan and Isolde The James Franco one. The history is god-awful, but the movie is a real pleasure AND I can get LadyAsbestos to watch it!