Henry of Navarre (Boisselier), a Huguenot, is arranged to marry Margot (Armelle Deutsch), sister to the delightfully unhinged King Charles IX (Noethen) and daughter of his manipulative mother Catherine de Medici (Hoger). Medici, eager to keep at least one of her sons in power, soon sees Henry as a threat to her influence as the royal puppeteer. With a heroic destiny set out before him, and with more than his fair share of detractors desperate for the crown to remain upon a Catholic brow, the film charts the ambitious King-to-be’s difficult path to the throne.

Director Jo Baier has done a commendable job of not only squeezing forty years of history into one feature film, but handily tying things up half way through in case his opus is split down the middle for television. Boasting an array of Machiavellian characters, a plethora of engagingly realistic battle sequences and a fleet of women more than willing to take their clothes off, Henry of Navarre is an accomplished addition to the glut of bloody, sexy period epics kick-started by Rome but since maintained by The Tudors and Camelot.

However, while the beautifully outfitted and lovingly designed Henry of Navarre might be a visual treat, it is not entirely successful as a piece of drama. Although undeniably ambitious, the film itself is sprawling and cumbersome, the labyrinthine narrative short-changing everybody but Henry himself; the performances are of a high (if heightened) standard, but very few characters prove memorable in the melting pot that is medieval Paris. If the film’s 155 minute running time does not faze you at first, by the last act – and the last battle, the last murder, the last sexual conquest – its true size will really hit home, begging the question as to whether this historical epic too might have been better suited to a full television series.

Gorgeous, sexy and gloriously visceral, Henry of Navarre is a true feast for history buffs who like a side of theatricality with their European history. At two and a half hours, however, this is period indigestion at its most self-indulgent. One hour Henry is a child washing shit off his pants following his first battle, then he’s a teenager for all of one montage; when it comes to the King of Navarre, time really does fly like a roasted chicken.

A Roman Centurion decides to have a big massive solider wee off the top of a battlement (why? Because he’s a freakin Roman solider and they can do whatever the hell they want, alright?). He gets out his Roman manhood, grunts in a Roman-y way and lets rip, like only a Roman can. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he gets stabbed from below – in the arse, just to confirm – right up his jacksey like a kebab with a helmet on. Mid wee. Down he falls. Probably into the wee. Let war commence!

Yes, or no? If the above sounds like damn good fun, then Centurion is for you (and definitely for us). If not, maybe go see The Princess and The Frog or something, where there’s decidedly less arse-stabbings (almost none).

Bringing The Legend To Life

Centurion explores the legend of the Ninth Legion; a tale in which approximately 5000 Roman soldiers -the legion – were massacred in Scotland by the Picts; a rival British army sick of Roman rule. Director Neil Marshall happily admits that he is not trying for historical accuracy with his film, that he wanted to use the legend as a starting point to make a Roman/British thriller.

Marshall’s tale follows a small gang of Romans who survive the horrific Pict attack. Led by Quintas Dias (Michael Fassbender), the men that are left have to try and rescue their leader (Dominic West) from the enemy before they are picked off one by one. The plot centres on the chase between the remaining soldiers, and the vengeful Picts who are determined to wipe out every last Roman they can find. Led by mute tracker Etain (Olga Kurylenko), there is no-one the Pict warriors cannot find, and soon the exhausted, wounded and desperate Romans have to decide, when should soldiers run, and when is the time to fight?

Don’t Try And Keep Count…

Centurion’s plot is very simple, it is essentially a chase movie with a lot – and we mean a lot – of violence. We don’t want to give everything away, but just don’t get too attached to many of the characters, because if there’s one thing Neil Marshall seems to like most, it’s people getting hacked to death. And to be fair, the fight scenes look and sound great – particularly the one-on-one battles between Etain (Kurylenko) and the Roman generals. The pans across the misty Scottish moors are both beautiful and effective, drawing us into an ancient world where tensions run high and blood runs – well, bloody everywhere.

Not Built In A Day

If we were to critique Centurion, it would be for its lack of interesting characters, and lack of character interaction throughout. There are the ‘good’ people, the ‘bad’ ones, and generally speaking everyone on screen does exactly what you think they’re going to do. Because of the lack of character depth, there’s not really a lot of opportunity for light relief; everyone is too busy being cliche ‘troubled soldiers’ to show any real flashes of humanity, which makes all the conversation rather one-note, and rather like this-

Soldier “I cannot go on”
Other Solider “We have to go on”
Soldier “You must leave me here”
Other Solider “I shall not leave you”
Soldier “Oh, alright then, cool, cheers mate” (maybe not so much the last line)

In essence, this is a armour-clanging, moody makeup and dripping-swords slasher, with some sophisticated shots and a lot of great action. It may not leave you particularly thoughtful after watching, but by thunder it’s entertaining. And at the end of the day, it makes you want to buy a sword. Which is always good, right?

Though book-wise Angels and Demons is the prequel to mind-crampingly implausible Da Vinci Code, in order to keep things nice and simple (in a mind-crampingly implausible way) the producers decided to treat Angels and Demons as the next episode in Brown’s saga.

Those who enjoyed the first film won’t be disappointed with the sequel. Angels and Demons is two and a half hours of Stuff Happening. Set over one day, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and conveniently-beautiful scientist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) have but hours to follow ancient symbols, crack codes and stop the bad shit from goin’ down. But where? And why? And who? And how much is Hanks getting paid for this?

Much like it’s predecessor, the premise is utterly ridiculous. Potato faced Prof. Langdon discovers evidence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati, the most powerful underground organization since moles figured out they could dig. The bad news is that they bloody hate the church. They hate them in a blowing them up type way. When Langdon learns that the clock is ticking on an unstoppable Illuminati time bomb he jets to Rome and romps around sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs and deserted cathedrals to save the church and wafers and such. Thankfully he doesn’t need clearance for any of it, being Tom Hanks and all.

The plot moves at the speed of light; clues are easily found, easily solved and ancient helpers happily direct the way.You can’t help but wonder if you’re watching an extended episode of The Crystal Maze. If you can take any logical thought out of your mind (and helpfully we very much posess this skill), this is an entertaining, if rather bewildering way to spend two hours. However we suspect that if you know anything, anything at all about art, history or how alarms works you should stay clear. You may stay angry for some time.

Special Features

Rome Was not Built in a Day

Writing Angels & Demons

Characters in Search of the True Story

Cern: Pushing the Boundaries of Knowledge