Writ & Dir: Neil Marshall
I love and adore Dog Soldiers. And The Decent was pretty damn good too Of course Doomsday was utterly preposterous but you win some, you lose some. And I was still prepared to take a chance on Neil Marshall, especially when the story is about Roman soldiers on the run in the second century. I mean it had to be better than King Arthur, right?
The film opens at sea, in a storm. A fisherman hauls in an ornate box and after prising it open finds a baby boy and his dead mother. He and his wife raise this child as their own, loving him just as much as their flesh and blood daughter, whom they bear some years later. We know this because Pete Postlethwaite tells us so. This boy, Perseus, does not know it, but he is a demi-god, the son of Zeus himself. And he is about to get caught up in a conflict between humanity and the Gods of Ancient Greece.
based on book by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Sara Crewe lives a spoiled life in India with a devoted, doting father, until World War I intervenes, and he enlists, sending Sara off to boarding school in New York to keep her safe. There she must adjust, whereas before she had free rein to do as she pleased, now she must submit to rules and regulations that she doesn’t understand. And, most difficult for her, she must keep her imagination in check. But Sara isn’t a selfish, “poor little rich girl”, she is bright and kind, and soon makes friends with most of the other girls, from those in her class to the scullery maid. She is also the only one who can really get through to Lottie as they have both lost their mothers.
Opening with a hurling scene in Cork in the 1920’s this film lives entirely within the experience of the main character, Damien. A young doctor about to leave Ireland for a career in London he is pulled into the Irish War of Independence. And this film is about his fight. The film starts without any introductory text, there is no attempt made to make the viewer aware of the wider world, this is Damien’s story and only his story.
Recent Comments