Did you see Neil Marshall’s Doomsday? With one small exception* I loved it. The film doesn’t have an original bone in its body, but it reminds me of those mix CDs you can buy on Canal Street, the ones that have a lot of popular songs all smoothly mixed together, sometimes mashed up in unexpected ways. It made me a Marshall fan for life.
So I’m really interested in his next film, Centurion, set during the AD117 Roman invasion of Britain. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it is ‘the story of Quintus Dias, sole survivor
of a Pictish raid on a Roman frontier fort, who marches north with
General Virilus’ legendary Ninth Legion, under orders to wipe the
Picts from the face of the Earth and destroy their leader,
Gorlacon.’
The cast is looking pretty good – Michael Fassbender, Bond babe Olga Kurylenko and former The Wire star Dominic West** are the folks announced so far – and Marshall himself is taking on the writing duties. I imagine that we’ll see some Gladiator, some 300, some Excalibur and who knows what else.
*how do you have a scene where Mad Max-style post apocalyptic punk rockers attack a castle full of medieval knights and not show that battle?
** So I’m happy to see him working, and I’m excited about a Neil Marshall sword and sandals movie, but I am a little worried that West’s movie career isn’t quite matching up to the promise of his TV work.