Time to welcome Neil Marshall back from the post-apocalyptic hinterlands of Scotland for his latest, a…erm…post-apocalyptic* adventure set in Scotland…
Looking back on his work, it’s clear that Neil has an affection for genre pics – nowt wrong with that. Dog Soldiers set up a small group of hard nuts against Werewolves. Descent set up a group of soon-to-be hardnuts against..whatever that weird Morlocky thing was. Doomsday set up..well, you get the idea, and while it doesn’t quite reach the absurd brilliance of his earlier take on lycanthropy, Marshall’s look at ancient British history is still a grab bag of gory fun with a certain swaggering charm.
It’s the 2nd century, and the chaps in Rome are a mite pissed off with a bunch of hairy Scots ner-do-wells wandering about and beating the crap out of various border patrols. Time for a spot of overkill thinks emperor Hadrian.
Hey, what else can is he supposed to do? It’s not like he can build a wall along the entire side of the country is it?
Enter the Ninth Legion, a bunch of crack leather-skirted lunatics taking time out from chopping up Visigoths. Unfortunately their overconfidence proves ill-founded, as fierce Pict Etain (Kurylenko) takes out most of the legion before embarking on a gory chase movie for the next two acts.
Plus points first then: Clearly the director’s penchant for filming in Caledonian woodland is bearing bitter fruit – the cinematography here is fantastic (Marshall’s penchant for over-using the blue filter aside). Mist soaked woodlands come across as beautifully primal and eerie, the landscape displaying a rugged, terrifying charm that The Lord of the Rings would have been proud of. Lead Roman Michael Fassbinder and his surviving men have a whale of a time plunging through the deep forests and scrambling up shale covered hillsides in their bid for escape, the landscape itself one of the most formidable opponents on display.
Unfortunately Etain and her fellow Picts just don’t compare.
The action is all-out, frantic chases across a terrifying landscape, but it’s too break-neck, with little time for character development as one faceless legionnaire after another is despatched by a variety of interchangeable blue-faced Pictish loonies. Meanwhile Kurylenko’s character is mute, meaning her already limited emoting time is reduced to a montage of angry scowls. The Picts have a genuine grievance against the Roman invaders, so it’s a shame that both sides of the story aren’t aired in a more effective fashion – if they were, this could be something quite special, rather than the effective but somewhat run of the mill shocker we’ve ended up with.
But hey, it’s an action flick with added swords and sandals, and when it does succeed, it’s great. Dominic West stands out as slightly deranged, scenery-chewing general Virilus, and while Fassbinder struggles to convince in his five minute encounter with a token luverly lady, he scowls, growls and punches his way through the often electrifying action sequences in fine style, proving himself as a major action star in the making.
Overall this is good, but not great, and while it’s a shame that some of the missed opportunities stand out so clearly on screen, what remains is a brutal romp that will go down a treat on DVD with a few beers and a pizza.
*OK, OK, it was the apocalypse as far as the Roman Empire was concerned, so I say it still counts. It’s my f**king blog ok?
