Review: Centurion (Neil Marshall, 2010)

Neil Marshall has been in somewhat of a slump lately.  Dog Soldiers, while not the best werewolf movie ever made, was easily one of the most entertaining.  The Descent was a masterpiece of claustrophobic panic with the kind of strong female characterizations seldom seen in film today, let alone horror movies.  Unfortunately, Doomsday was overly reliant on masturbatory post-apocalyptic movie references to stand on its own as a legitimate piece of entertainment. Centurion is more "generic swords-and-sandals" to Doomsday's dystopian plagiarism.

Centurion follows (or attempts to, since there's more running in this movie than Gallipoli) Roman Centurion Quintas Dias (Michael Fassbender) as he runs away from, and then back to, and then away from, and then slightly back to the aboriginal "Pict" warriors as the Roman legion attempts to push farther into the northern reaches of the British isles, circa 112 AD.  All of the peripheral plot details are shared through Dias' mostly unobtrusive narration and thin stretches of dialogue before returning to more running and gouts of CG blood.  Somewhere in all of this there's a Pict tracker (Olga Kurylenko, permanently scowling former Bond girl) and woebegone tales of Roman atrocity, but it's definitely more 13th Warrior than it is Gladiator.

Marshall's direction is solid, if unimpressive, and he still has an ear for writing banter, particularly between soldiers.  His characters move with an easy camaraderie that you can find in most his films.  This does lead to a problem, however, when the gratuitous cursing becomes completely incongruous with Centurion's period setting, not to mention a late love interest is treated with laughable disregard.

From the groin stab that opens the movie, it displays a comical, almost ridiculous enthusiasm for violence that's infectious if you're into that sort of thing (bludgeoned with trees, bisected soldiers sort of thing).  The computerized blood is, unfortunately, extremely obvious and a wildly different color than the practical blood effects only seen in about five percent of the movie.

If you're in the mood for something you don't have to think about, or you're interested in seeing a disgustingly graphic depiction of deer entrails, you might consider this one.  I strongly believe that Neil Marshall has another great film in him, but Centurion isn't it.

Review: The Square (Nash Edgerton, 2008)

Is a compelling character one who reacts organically to their environment, or someone who is weathering ceaseless misfortune despite efforts they've made to the contrary?  I'll get to that, but first, the plot:

Married Ray (David Roberts) is having an affair with the much younger Carla (Claire van der Boom), who is also married to a criminal named "Smithy" (Anthony Hayes, coming off as a mulleted Australian analog of Tyler Labine).  The film follows the unfaithful couple as they try to score one last bundle of cash to start a new life, and the increasingly horrific circumstances that arise because of it.  Simple, yes, but the director knows how to work these minimal plot elements for a fantastic amount of tension with a nervy, handheld camera style. Unfortunately, with a slight foundation certain things get left by the wayside.  You'll notice I didn't mention Ray's wife's name, because The Square doesn't seem particularly interested in her either and she's completely absent from the latter half of the running time.

The main problem with the film is that ninety percent of the misfortune befalling our protagonists is too random.  They don't make rash decisions, the consequences of which will haunt them for the rest of their lives;  they are simply dogged by a stream of predictable accidents growing to an almost antagonistic din by the end.  This takes almost all characterization out of the plot and turns it into a 100-minute-long exercise in Murphy's Law.

It's not all bad, though.  The film knows its subtlety: the sly reveal of Ray's married status after the opening tryst when he checks his watch, the unspoken implication that a man-for-hire is an unstable pyromaniac evidenced by spot-on acting and burn scars.  The recurring scene of a runaway dog is loaded with subtext of guilt and inevitability.  Also, Santa shows up on a boat.

There are better examples of Neo-Noir out there, but few of them generate the kind of tension that The Square is capable of, when it wants to be.

A Statement of Purpose

I've been in love with movies since I first saw Vertigo when I was 15, which I rented specifically because it was from Hitchcock. Having previously been aware of only Psycho and The Birds, my teenage mind had no idea that it would spawn another decade and a half of unrelenting, alienating pretension. Some of that excitement, adoration, and not a small amount of vitriol will hopefully be spilling through here roughly twice a week as I post reviews, articles, and various other film-related nonsense.  I don't have a specific format nailed down right now, so I'll be trying out a few things until I find one that fits.