Rachael Stirling Online

My review of Centurion: not really starring Rachael Stirling

Posted by Bonnie at 5.41pm

Well, we went to see Centurion today.

I'm not really sure what to say about it. It reminded me a bit of a low-budget Gladiator, and it passed the time; I didn't fall asleep or anything, so it held my attention. Having said that, it's definitely not the sort of film I would usually choose to watch. It was extremely bloody, though a lot of the battle scenes are so fast-paced that all you see are spurts of blood in the air and then slumping bodies. I would say the sound effects are, on the whole, gorier than the visuals; though there is one scene where the soldiers kill a stag, drink its blood and then eat its stomach contents, which isn't really for the faint-hearted. On the whole, it's a film with a lot of violence in it, and if you don't like that sort of thing, you will spend much of it hiding behind your hands.

Most importantly, however, is this… and I have to say this in case anyone is going to see this film against their better judgement simply for Rachael's part in it: if you're unlikely to enjoy the film for its subject matter, don't go to see it just because Rachael is in it. I'm sorry to say that she doesn't appear until the last few minutes of the film; literally the last five minutes. She is on-screen for about sixty seconds and says approximately three short sentences. She looks very beautiful while doing it, and we'll get about ten pretty screencaps out of it, but her appearance is extremely brief; certainly the briefest role of her career so far. I also learnt, as the credits rolled, that her character's name is actually spelt Druzilla, so I'll update that on the site.

So unfortunately not a starring role for our Rachael, far from it, but she did well with the limited screen time she had, as she always does. All in all it wasn't a terrible way to spend a Saturday afternoon, especially as we were able to get our tickets free with Nectar points, but I won't be rushing out to buy the DVD. If you like battle films with a bit of history thrown in, however accurate or inaccurate it may be (I am none the wiser), some slightly suspect dialogue and a fair bit of stunning Scottish landscape littered with bodies, you may well enjoy it.

I've added a few press reviews to the site today (they're not good):

• Radio Times
• NME
• Guardian
• Independent
• Evening Standard

Has anyone else managed to see it?

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Centurion

Posted by Bonnie at 5.39pm

The legend of the 9th Roman Legion, lost for ever in Caledonia around AD 117, has been the subject of half a dozen stupid movies. Neil Marshall's take on the apparent disaster has the Picts to blame, playing the guerrilla game rather better than the Taliban. Michael Fassbender is Quintus Dias, leading three other survivors (Dominic West, Liam Cunningham and David Morrissey) back to the border where they are building Hadrian's Wall. Meanwhile, the Picts are led by Olga Kurylenko's mute but beautiful warrior, bent on revenging Roman atrocities. "I don’t know whether to fight or **** her," says one of the Roman officers — and that's the trouble. The screenplay is often giggleworthy.

Centurion makes a decently mounted action movie in which only the uniforms and weaponry differentiate it from Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe that's the point of it. But you still have to pen a script.

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Centurion showing at these UK cinemas

Posted by Bonnie at 3.06pm

Centurion opens in UK cinemas today!

Claire and I are planning to go to see it tomorrow or Sunday, and I'm really looking forward to it as it'll be the first time we've managed to see Rachael on the big screen. I have absolutely no idea how big a role she has in the film though! Guess we'll see this weekend!

I'm quite impressed as it seems like despite a serious lack of publicity, it does seem to be getting a fairly wide release. It's showing daily at our main local cinema and is up to six times a day some days, which is really good. We do have four local cinemas to choose from, though, and it's only showing at one of them.

I've done quite a thorough search for showings at some of the UK's top cinema chains and have found Centurion showing at the following cinema locations. There may be more at independent cinemas, of course, but it would probably take me a year to search all of them.

• Cineworld
  Aberdeen Union Square, Ashford, Ashton-under-Lyne, Birmingham Broad Street, Bolton, Bradford, Braintree, Bristol, Cardiff, Castleford, Crawley, Edinburgh, Enfield, Falkirk, Glasgow Renfrew Street, High Wycombe, Isle of Wight, Milton Keynes, Newport Wales, Nottingham, Shaftesbury Avenue, Sheffield, Stevenage, Wandsworth, Wolverhampton
• Empire
  Basildon, Birmingham Great Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunderland, Swindon (Greenbridge)
• Odeon
  Braehead, Greenwich, Kingston, Lee Valley, Leeds-Bradford, Liverpool ONE, Manchester, Norwich, Southampton, Trafford Centre
• Movie House Cinemas (Northern Ireland only)
  City Side, Dublin Road, Glengormley, Maghera, Coleraine
• Showcase
  Cinema de Lux Bristol, Cinema de Lux Derby, Cinema de Lux Leicester, Birmingham, Bluewater, Bristol, Coventry, Derby, Dudley, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nantgarw, Newham, Nottingham, Paisley, Peterborough, Reading, Teesside, Walsall
• Vue
  Birmingham, Bolton, Bristol Cribbs Causeway, Bristol Longwell Green, Bury Pilsworth, Cardiff, Cheshire Oaks, Croydon Purley Way, Edinburgh Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh Omni Centre, Hull Princes Quay, Leeds The Light, Northampton, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Romford, Sheffield, Shepherds Bush, Swansea, Wood Green, York

Hopefully everyone who wishes to see the film will be able to find a location close to them. It would be great if we could all go to see it in support of Rachael and the effort which has clearly gone into the film! I for one am looking forward to seeing her on the big screen at last as I didn't get around to seeing The Young Victoria in cinemas, and her other films haven't made it to cinema locations I can access easily.

I hope that if any of you are planning to see the film this weekend that you enjoy it! If you do see it, please join us at the message board to discuss the film and your thoughts on it!

2 Comments

Centurion

Posted by Bonnie at 12.00am

Writer/director Neil Marshall examines the fate of Rome's legendary Ninth Legion in this dull and episodic take on the myth. In Britain in AD 117, the legion are sent to vanquish the Picts and their leader Gorlacon (Ulrich Thomsen), only to face a sustained onslaught under the command of the mute Etain (Quantum of Solace Bond girl Olga Kurylenko). Hero Quintus (a weak Michael Fassbender) and his fast-diminishing platoon must then evade capture as they race for the Roman frontier. Marshall takes the survival template from his previous films Dog Soldiers and The Descent into the sub-Gladiator/300 arena, but fails to invest his core characters with any personality, meaning who lives or dies becomes immaterial amid the grungy battle footage drenched in CGI gore. Though it's technically impressive and has an epic sweep, the lack of suspense and emotional involvement makes this little more than a chase movie in ancient garb.

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Centurion

Posted by Bonnie at 12.00am

What would ancient Rome have been like if everyone talked a little bit more like a mockney geezer than you might expect? That question, and others, is answered in Centurion, Neil Marshall's historical halfway-house between the graphic videogame violence of 300, and the regular violence of, you know, death that actually involves humans and hurts quite a lot.

The overall effect — as this tale of the disappearance of the Ninth Legion in Britain shows — is one of a videogame from 2035 that someone else is playing for you.

The dialogue won't be that much better (sample line: "Two years on the frontier — this is truly the asshole of the world"). And the plot will still be pretty basic — this is the simply the tale of a rag-tag bunch of Roman soldiers (among them The Wire's Dominic West, Michael Fassbender and Noel Clarke) who are fighting the savages in Scotland, find themselves the only ones left after a slaughter of their legion, and have to try to get home before the Scots (Quantum of Solace's Olga Kurylenko among them) catch up.

But boy will it look good — all sweeping Scottish scenery and lush snow-topped mountain ranges. It'll almost look real. Alas, they still won't put too much work into the characters, so you still won't really be bothered about who lives or dies, but on the other hand, the violence will really be full-on.

The latter is perhaps least surprising, considering this is the director of Dog Soldiers and Doomsday, but Marshall seems to have distilled violence down to such an art that not only does it not really feel violent any more (though to be fair, Tarantino was the one to get us on this track: violence that knows everything about spectacle but nothing about suffering), but it's not even that exciting either.

One notable fight scene sees Marshall dispense almost entirely with the idea of swords clashing, or spears missing, or arrows hitting shields. I guess we're meant to assume that's happening too, but Marhsall's not interested in it: we only see heads being crushed, spearing plunging deep, swords cleanly slicing limbs, and blood spurting out with vigour, the way the cinematographer would have wanted it.

It makes it all look like a rather fun — if easy — game. But I think I'll wait for the console to play it on.

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