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Archive for Movie

Gravity – Puts the Thrill Back in Thriller

Oct16

gravity-movie-posterTitle: Gravity

Cast: George Clooney (Actor), Sandra Bullock (Actor), Alfonso Cuarón (Director)

Genre: Science Fiction Thriller

Watched:  October 14, 2013

Summary: Best movie of the year (so far)

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I know there is a lot of great buzz about Gravity, but I have to chime in and agree. This is just a wonderful film. It’s not deepest hour and a half of cinema to ever hit the silver screen, but as a Science Fiction film, spectacle, thriller, and all around emotional experience — it’s first rate.

Let me also say that I’ve been an Alfonso Cuarón fan for some time. I loved his version of Great Expectations. Y Tu Mamá También is extremely touching. And Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (a bit of a deviation for him) is the most personal and thoughtful of that octolagy. Cuarón knows how to combine intimacy with visual panache and Gravity is not only directed by him, but co-written, and produced by him as well.

The premise here is simple. Something goes wrong in space. Sandra Bullock tries to survive. The nothingness between worlds is both beautiful and scary. This is the most hostile environment mankind has ventured to. Maybe being pressurized on a really deep dive is about as bad, but at least there, up is up and down is down.

gravity-debris

Not a great time for a little space walk

This is a gorgeous film. Everyone says so, and they’re right. The 3D is subtle and intense. The panning and spinning shots are dizzying on purpose. I didn’t even see it in Imax (just on a normal big Real 3D setup). In Imax it must be really intense. The visuals are generally seamless. The shots have a nice artistry to them, as one expects from Cuarón.

It’s also, for all its big scope, a very intimate and personal film. Bullock carries it, and carry it she must as she’s in every scene and there is only one other actor (George Clooney) — and he’s gone after the 25% mark. This is her film, and that same plucky charisma she displayed in Demolition Man, Speed, and whenever she picked a decent script over the 20 years since is there in  force. I’m not sure I totally believe her as a loner doctor, but she had me at “hello.” You feel for her, for her character, and for the awesome magnificence of the circumstances in which she finds herself. There is just enough backstory  to sell the emotional depth. When she manages to get inside the International Space Station (after nearly being punctured, battered, and suffocated), she curls into a little zero G ball. It works.

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An emotional and intimate moment

The music is also very good, adding to the grandeur and scope . Just as effective is the consistent and utter lack of any sound that wouldn’t be conveyed through vacuum. The shuttle and space station are destroyed silently. Hatches bang open without a sound. Jets release gas soundlessly. Like that moment in Saving Private Ryan where the artillery blast knocks out Tom Hank’s ears, the effect is even more dramatic that the usual cacophony.

Gravity‘s pacing is relentless. As each hopeful goal is neared, some new catastrophe intervenes, keeping possible salvation just out of reach. This is accomplished with a deft mix of understandable mistakes and by the sheer array of force deployed against our heroine. But for all that, this is a movie without any villains. The one secondary character borders on saintly. It’s a classic “man against nature” thriller, and the scope of nature’s ability to kill here is truly frightening. When you depend a thin layer of archaic and marginal 1960s tech for every ounce of survival, things like 300 degree temperature swings and small bits of metal traveling 20,000 miles an hour are formidable foes.

Let’s sidestep for a second and talk about the Science Fiction. Gravity doesn’t assume any future tech. It’s set right now, or perhaps even 2011 as we haven’t launched a space shuttle since then. The events are improbable, and even a few are probably unsurvivable, but the film doesn’t go out of its way to be unrealistic or gratuitous. If I had to choose things to disbelieve, I can: Some of that huge debris storm would likely have hit Sandra (fatally). The sheer amount of physical punishment (being whacked around) would be pretty tough to take. Sandra manages to do a lot of things that are probably very difficult, very quickly. The 3 hours shown would be unimaginably exhausting. Her ISS Soyuz capsule was traveling pretty fast as she passed the Chinese station, and there is no friction in space, so I’m not sure the thrust in a single half-used fire hydrant would be sufficient to match velocity with the station. Or that she had the talent to fly with it. The early reentry of said station would probably be catastrophic as well. But this is all unimportant. Movies require suspension of disbelief, and this film doesn’t demand such unreasonably.

Gravity does everything a film should do. It provides character and drama. Shock and spectacle. Thrills and tears. Enough said.

For more Film reviews, click here.

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  1. Prometheus Rebound
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By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Alfonso Cuarón, George Clooney, Gravity, International Space Station, Movie, Sandra Bullock, Science Fiction, Science fiction film

Dark Shadows – Why?

May22

Title: Dark Shadows (2012)

Cast: Johnny Depp (Actor), Michelle Pfeiffer (Actor), Tim Burton (Director)

Genre: Vampire Comedy

Watched:  May 19, 2012

Summary: Why? Just why?

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My dedication to all things vampire made me see it. I swear.

One wonders if Tim Burton ever works with anyone other than Johnny Depp. But the issue here isn’t really Depp’s deadpan Deppist performance, which is certainly one of the better things about the film. It’s basically in the meta creative choices and the writing. The source material is long, dramatic, or rather melodramatic, and convoluted. It involves stories being woven out over many episodes (1991) or years (2800 episodes of the original!). Any comedy was inadvertent.

Not so much here. There is no backstory. Instead, what happened between Barnabus in the 18th century (involving his affair with the witch Angelique and the subsequent death of his lover and conversion into vampire) is spelled out in a quick prelude. This is the best part of the film and the least comic. But its presence also leaves no room for any sense of mystery.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpWvkFlyl4M]

Then cut to 1972 and the awakening of our entombed hero. For a few moments the fish out of water comedy is funny, even if it’s all in the trailer. But that’s about it. There is pretty much zero character development here. The creators shove in a large number of characters from the original, even if in mutated form, but there is so much time spent with Depp that everyone else (with the possible exception of Angelique) is anemic at best. There isn’t even an attempt at a character arc for anyone. The conflict is minimal and simplistic. In fact, the movie devolves into a kind of “we have to save the family business” rivalry type film, even including one of my least favorite Hollywood devices: “everything can be fixed with a good party.” Which includes a 1972 Alice Cooper who looks exactly like 2012 Alice Cooper. But even the lame business conflict line is underwritten. The second half was just boring.

There are a few good moments of visual or deadpan humor, mostly involving slightly esoteric riffs to vampire fans. Willy’s character is good. Chloe Moretz is cute but stuck with perpetual curled lip. Eva Green is confused but sexy. Depp seems to have blended Jack Sparrow, Hunter S Thompson, and Max Schreck. I like what he does with his pointy fingered hands. He pivots up unnaturally out of his coffin. Many younger viewers will know this best from Coppola’s Dracula, but he too borrowed it from the 1922 Nosferatu. I liked the image of the vampire sleeping in the linen closet. These are small things, and definitely not enough to save the film.

My thoughts on the 1991 revival.

For more Film reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Dark Shadows – The Revival
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  3. Stake Land – Vampire Zombie Scramble
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By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Angelique, Barnabas Collins, Dark Shadows, EvaGreen, Johnny Depp, Max Schreck, Michelle Pfeiffer, Movie, reviews, Tim Burton, Vampire, vampires

Primer – Thinking Time Travel

May19

Title: Primer

Director/Stars: Shane Carruth (Director)

Genre: Time Travel

Watched:  May 7, 2012

Summary: Brilliant and confusing

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This is very much a thinking man’s thriller. It’s a slightly Momento-esque time travel film supposedly filmed for a mere $7,000! I’m skeptical that it was actually that cheap, but it certainly was cheap. Even so, it rarely suffers for it.

The film is very short at 77 minutes and the first half elapses before we see any actual time travel. We follow a group of engineers speaking a nearly incomprehensible technobabble. Even as an ultimate techie (M.I.T. grad degree in EECS) I could not follow most of it — the writers did not intend us to — but it’s actually fairly reasonable. I had more problem with all the engineers wearing shirt and tie even during leisure hours. In any case, they accidentally invent a peculiar kind of time machine. It allows very limited (and fairly awkward) backward travel.

If you want to try and understand it, which isn’t easy, read this page.

The second half is a dizzying series of overlapping events as the two main protagonists loop and reloop across a few sleepless days. Understanding the exact sequence would undoubtedly require numerous viewings. The creator spares little effort to make such complex matters easily digestible.

As someone who has recently (last year) created his own time travel scheme, for my novel Untimed, I appreciate this complete, well thought out, and fully coherent scheme. This is old school hard sci-fi of sorts, and it’s refreshing in this era of marketing driven watered down drivel to have to puzzle something out.

For more Film reviews, click here.

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By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Movie, Physics, primer, Relativity, Shane Carruth, Technobabble, Time travel

Stake Land – Vampire Zombie Scramble

Feb27

Title: Stake Land

Director/Stars: Connor Paolo (Actor), Nick Damici (Actor), Jim Mickle (Director)

Genre: Zombie Thriller

Watched:  February 22, 2012

Summary: Impressive addition to the genre

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Steak Land is a very ambitious film. On a diminutive budget, it attempts to paint a fairly complete vision of a post-apocalyptic America — and is successful enough to be impressive. There is nothing original in the set up.  Some kind of virus has devastated the world turning much of the population into vampires/zombie hybrids. Those that didn’t suffer this worse-than-death fate had their necks torn out or their brains eaten.  Our heroes are a teenage boy and a kick ass monster hunter known only as Mr. They travel across America seeking a monster free zone picking up various strays along the way.  Meanwhile, the zombie-like “vamps” pop out of nowhere on a continuous basis. And even worse there are homicidal religious maniacs deal with.

None of these themes are new. And the film feels a bit of the mashup of The Road, the Book of Eli, I am legend, Zombieland, and 28 days later. It’s on the darker side, rarely comic, and closest to The Road. But without the completely unrelenting sense of dread and hopelessness of that film. Despite costing a fraction of the above, Steak Land manages to feel pretty authentic. And it’s ultimately more successful and watchable than The Road or the Book of Eli.  the director spends time his characters, and in particular on post-apocalyptic America as well. By frequently lingering on the devastation, and on the multitude of corpses, he fairly effectively paints the bleak landscape. There some effort here to imagine different approaches to survival. Not only complete sense, but I give him an A for effort. The monsters a fairly interesting, combining the mindless qualities of zombies with some of the powers and weaknesses of vampires.

The same is true with the characterization. The writer-director  wants to make these fleshed out characters. And some extent he succeeds. There are occasionally cheesy moments, but they are certainly forgivable given the budget. His religious nut job villain is quite enjoyable — although when he inevitably vamps out a little gratuitous. And the concluding events felt a little rushed, robbing them of proper emotional depth. Still,  the film is a surprisingly impressive addition to the genre.

Interestingly, the film has many superficial similarities to Naughty Dog’s upcoming game The Last of Us.

For more Film reviews, click here.

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By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, Book of Eli, Connor Paolo, Jim Mickle, Movie, Movies, Naughty Dog, Nick Damici, reviews, Road, Stake Land, The Book of Eli, Ti West, Vampire, vampires, zombie, Zombieland, zombies

Conan the Barbarian – Lamentation of their women

Aug12

Title: Conan the Barbarian

Director/Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Actor), James Earl Jones (Actor)

Genre: Drama

Watched: August 3, 2011 (and before)

Summary: Still one of the great fantasy films

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In honor of the upcoming remake of this classic, the  release of the blu-ray, and the political demise of its star, I decided to rewatch this for like the 10th time — I think the last time was in 1997.

During the long long dark ages of fantasy filmmaking, before the wonder that is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, or the epic new HBO Game of Thrones, we fantasy fans had to be content with a sorry set of films indeed. Above the pathetic likes of Willow and Krull, the 1982 Dino De Laurentiis epic starring the pre-Terminator Mr. Universe was high art indeed. In fact, it’s pretty much hands down the best High Fantasy film prior to LOTR.

It’s fascinating to see how it’s aged. Pretty well.

Technically, the blu-ray isn’t radically better than the DVD in the picture quality department, although it looks good. There is some film grain from the era, and the movie has a lot of contrast which strains my plasma (I need to get an LCD or good new projector). The sound needed a major new restoration it didn’t get, it was pretty terrible. Which is a shame given the spectacular score. Nevertheless, none of this takes much away from the film.

This movie has blood, guts, and tits, snakes, swords, cannibals, wizards and all that long before HBO. Gotta love it. The period head-banger stylings of everyone, particularly the bad guys are great fun.
625712dbd66eef366fd54013ca602b55

I love this trio of baddies. Check out heavy metal guitarist Nigel Tufnel on the right. Love him. And James Earl Jones is fantastic as cruel neo-hippy-killer Thulsa Doom. “Steel is week, flesh is strong!”

This movie feels big. It uses wide open location shots in Andalusia Spain to good effect, big sets, and crazy costumes. It’s just plain unabashed. Sure the dialog is laughably cheesy and the script ham-handed. Transitions are abrupt and there is little to no character development. But there are great lines like “time enough for the earth in the grave” and Atilla the Hun’s stolen quote, “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.” All good stuff.

What’s also very interesting is the forgotten style of epic storytelling, which has more in common with Lawrence of Arabia than it does with modern action crap like Transformers. This film has long Easy Rider style travel scenes with just the thunderous score and more interestingly, several almost ballet like giant action numbers with an operatic orchestral quality. These scenes, notably the raid on the Conan’s village, the assault on Set’s tower (awesome!), and the war-painted invasion of the cannibal Mountain of Power (more awesome!), have virtually no dialog. They have muted sound effects, but predominantly the mood is set with the booming orchestra and the intricately choreographed action, swaying as it does to the hypnotic score.

Really good stuff.

Peter Jackson knows his fantasy films, because he borrowed heavily from this in his own epic. Think the Black Riders at the Bree ferry, or the long descent to the bridge of Khazad-dûm. All favorite scenes of mine.

Michael Bey, eat your heart out!

Click for a review of the new 2011 Conan.

Or for more Film reviews, click here.

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By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan The Barbarian, Dino De Laurentiis, Fantasy film, HBO, James Earl Jones, Jason Momoa, Movie, Robert E. Howard

Back to the Future Part III

Apr12

Title: Back to the Future Part III

Director/Stars: Michael J. Fox (Actor), Christopher Lloyd (Actor), Robert Zemeckis(Director)

Genre: Time Travel Comedy

Year: 1990

Watched: March 31, 2011

Summary: Ug. What happened?

 

The end of part II leaves us with this sweet little setup. And then Back to the Future Part III just craps all over it.

Really this is barely a time travel movie. Basically Marty just pops back to 1885 to save Doc from being shot by Biff’s great-grandfather (again played by the same actor). The DeLorean has run out of gas… in 1885, so they have to figure out how to get it up to 88 miles an hour. Answer locomotive. This is a reverse of, but nearly the same, as the gimmick from the first movie with having to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of power via lightning bolt. Oh, and Doc falls in love.

What follows is a pretty silly, downright camp, little western pastiche. And that’s about it.

As I said, there isn’t much of the time travel and paradox fun we had in the first two films. But there is more rehash of the same jokes. Michael J Fox plays another McFly family member. Although one has to wonder why his great-grandmother still looks like Lea Thompson when she married into the family in the 50s! And the Fox genes must be dominant over the Glover ones. Oh we also get the “Biff eats manure” joke again. There’s also Doc’s little romance. I know it’s supposed to be sweet, but it really wasn’t doing it for me. Nothing really did, sorry.

This is only the second time I’ve seen the film (compared to like 15 times for part I and 5+ for part II). I remember being massively disappointed in the theater in 1990 (maybe even on opening night). I don’t feel any differently 21 years later.

I hope they don’t do some awful part IV that’s on par with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Check out the Back to the Future review Part I here.

Or my review of part II here.

Related posts:

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By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Arts, Back to the Future, Back to the Future Part III, Christopher Lloyd, DeLorean, DeLorean time machine, Film, Film Review, Lea Thompson, Marty McFly, Michael J Fox, Movie, Movie Review, Robert Zemeckis, Time travel

Better Off Dead

Mar31

Title: Better Off Dead

Director/Stars: John Cusack (Actor), Demian Slade (Actor), Savage Steve Holland (Director)

Genre: Teen Comedy

Year: 1985

Watched: March 28, 2011

Summary: Absurdist, but classic.

 

For some strange reason I’ve been on an 80s kick lately. High School nostalgia or something. Not only did I make a playlist of synthoid classics, but I started combing Amazon marketplace for cheap (like $2) used DVDs. Somehow I missed seeing all of Better Off Dead in the 26 years since release (only bits and pieces on cable), surprising given my nearly comprehensive knowledge of 80s films, and that I’m a fan of John Cusack — excepting the execrable 2012.

This is one whacky film. While it must have seemed absurdist even in 1985, now, with the added retro touch and hammy 80s overacting it’s really out there, bordering on Salvador Dali level surreal. But it is enjoyable. In a way it’s a parody of the then contemporary genre of 80s teen comedy, but it’s also a brother in arms. Nothing is taken too seriously and there are a many priceless moments. Like one of my college buddies favorite lines, “NT, big difference” (referring to the textual delta between “testicles” and “tentacles”), Lane’s mom’s cooking crawling across the table, or the goofy skiing-pole lightsaber duel near the end. But with a modern perspective, there’s the added benefit of the nostalgic and silly 80s hair, clothing, music, and even half forgotten facts like: Skiing was once cool! I remember it all too well, my first published video game was Ski Crazed!

When I saw Hot Tub Time Machine last year (another guilty pleasure) I was well aware of all the 80s movie spoof moments, but I hadn’t realized how much John Cusack was referencing Better Off Dead specifically. The plot is fairly meaningless, but basically as silly as the film is, at the core of most of the jokes are real embarrassing situations that plagued many teens — certainly in the 80s, and probably now.

I was also not aware until I looked it up that Curtis Armstrong, better known as Booger, was already in his 30s when playing these silly teen characters. Or that he has played 122 roles! The guy’s been busy for decades.

If you want to see more 80s movie reviews, I also blogged yesterday on About Last Night.

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By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Arts, Better Off Dead, Better Off Dead (film), Fiction, Film, Film Review, Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack, Movie, Movie Review, review, Savage Steve Holland, Ski Crazed

Movie Review: Adventureland

Nov30

Title: Adventureland

Director/Stars: Jesse Eisenberg (Actor), Kristen Stewart (Actor), Greg Mottola (Director)

Genre: Period (80s) Comedy Romance

Watched: Sept, 2010

Summary: Touching, funny. Great film.

 

I didn’t really have a lot of expectations going into this film. I knew it was by the same director as Superbad (great film) and starred Eisenberg and Stewart, and that’s about it. It’s a great film. The kind they rarely make anymore where it’s essentially a character movie woven around a romance. The script is great, the acting’s great, and the direction is great. It’s a funny movie, but not in the laugh a minute kind of way, but in a wry more or less real way.

Comedy varies across the spectrum of dark to realistic to slapstick to abstract. This is realistic. The humor is partially in the fact that these situations are real situations that we did or could have found ourselves in — and hence, it’s a kind of bittersweet humor. The tone is not so different than the excellent Freaks and Geeks TV show, and in fact there’s at least one actor in common (the excellent Martin Starr). They don’t make a lot of comedy romances like this anymore, the kind where there’s no gimmick, just real people, and hence real romance.

The plot is fairly incidental. We have the likable Eisenberg (playing on type, but great as a Geek who isn’t really shy) who has money troubles and needs to take a lousy summer job at a crappy Pittsburg theme park. Having grown up in the 80s this is exactly my generation (I’m perhaps 4 years younger than the characters) and the music and outfits are nostalgic and amusing. None of the people he meets are exactly stereotypes, and they have a delicate underwritten quality. The core that holds the film together is Eisenberg and Stewart (who proves she can do better with a script that isn’t terrible… I mean Twilight — CLICK FOR MY REVIEW). Not just the acting but the writing. He’s the kind of guy I could imagine being friends with, and she’s the kind of girl I could imagine having fallen for in college. There relationship feels real. This makes it sexy even though there isn’t much sex. And isn’t that one of the main things that fiction is about? Depicting real people. It seems all too often forgotten.

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By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Adventureland, blu-ray, Comedy, DVD, Fiction, Film, Freaks and Geeks, Greg Mottola, Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Movie, Pittsburg, reviews, romance, Superbad, Twilight

Movie Review: Centurion

Nov05

Title: Centurion

Director/Stars: Michael Fassbender (Actor), Dominic West (Actor), Neil Marshall (Director)

Genre: Period Action

Read: Nov 3, 2010

Summary: Surprisingly kick-ass.

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I’d completely missed this movie in the theaters, but that’s no wonder because it only played on 19 screens across the country. I hadn’t even heard of it, but I noticed a review while browsing my favorite movie reviewer’s site. Reviews were mixed, but it’s set in 117AD, and as a Roman History buff I had no choice but to order.

Wow. It kinda kicked ass.

This isn’t a film for everyone, certainly not for most women. Like the original Predator, it’s a guy’s film. Set in Northern Britain, this is the story of a bunch of Roman soliders on the run from a group of Pictish warriors (old old school Scotts) who want nothing better than to hack off their heads and carry them back to their village. Now, you actually can’t totally blame the Picts, they have their reasons. For the most part, this movie is actually fairly authentic. I mean this in a loose sort of way. It’s not based on any real historical events. The action is pretty crazy, but still, compared to some (cough cough, King Arthur), it makes perfect sense.

The movie is basically one long chase scene, and it just works. The landscapes are gorgeous, and the fight scenes have an intensity that’s often missing in today’s over edited films. Things are a bit grisly, but the camera cuts away quickly. You could freeze frame to see some nice brain splatters and battlefield amputations if you were so inclined. There’s a bit of a problem with the fact that many of the actors look very similar in their military uniforms with helmets or short cropped hair — but that’s why the army has uniforms etc. The actors do a good job given the largely physical demands of the roles. The dialog didn’t make me cringe except for a couple lines right in the intro. The whole thing has a nicely stylized feel without being all 300/Spartacus (the second of these, however, is a serious guilty pleasure). It’s much more realistic than either.

So if you like mano-a-mano sword and survival fighting, give it a watch.

If you don’t care about historic nitpicks, you can stop reading, but because I’m a huge Roman buff I’ll mention the anachronisms that bugged me, although none of them really detracted from the film. There are two female Pictish warriors. They kick ass, and I didn’t mind, but I’d wager my life on the fact that 1900 years ago Scottish society — like Roman — was, shall we say, a tad too sexist to allow women to formally fight. I’m all for the recent trend of sexy girl action stars, my own novel has a slightly anachronistic tough female protagonist, but we should realize it just wasn’t the case historically. The Picts also ambush and slaughter  a roman legion using the old “rolling balls of fire” trick, slaughtering all but about 10 men. I’m not sure that balls of fire had been invented, or that they ever were terribly effective in the field. In this period, leadership, numbers, discipline, armament, and positioning usually determined the outcome (almost always in the Roman favor). There are only a few cases of bald-faced defeats of the Imperial army, and none that bad in Britain, but I guess it isn’t that different than their defeat at Teutoberg Forest about a 100 years before the date of this film. Certain bits about the costumes were a little dubious, particularly the boots. What we think of as modern boots really weren’t in service in the Roman army at this period, even in cold areas. The armor looked accurate though, they were lucky because movies always love to use the segmented look of the second Century, even if depicting a Republican army. The Pictish outfits looked a bit medieval to me, rather than Iron Age, and the women had shoes (sorry girls, such luxuries were mostly for soldiers and hunters in that kind of borderline neolithic society). Oh, and a few too many Picts seemed to speak Latin — I have to wonder how common that was. But all and all it felt fairly second century.

Related posts:

  1. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  2. Book and Movie Review: The Road
  3. Book and Movie Review: Twilight
  4. Book Review: City of War
By: agavin
Comments (8)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: action, Augustus, blood, Centurion, Dominic West, Fiction, Film, King Arthur, Michael Fassbender, Movie, Neil Marshall, Olga Kurylenko, pict, Picts, reviews, roman, Roman army, Roman Empire, Roman legion, violence, witches
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