X-Men: First Class [2011]

The story of how the X-Men got started.

I didn’t expect to like this one too much – but the 60’s short dresses – lingerie and plenty of attractive women showing their curves – sold me that this is the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME!! There were some guys in it and they did stuff too – but did you see all the cleavage? Wow! Lots of hot leg action too! January Jones is already a porn name – but that’s her REAL name – she played the lady who dressed in shiny white leather – boobs! James Fassbender and Michael McAvoy are in this movie somewhere – and I’m sure they did a fine job doing the things they do – but Jennifer Lawrence as the blue naked chick – yes please! I watched it and thought maybe I should watch it again in slow-mo! There’s even some Nazi killing too – which is all fuck yeah – did you see the caboose on that chick! They should make movies with just chick being almost naked – or even a little naked – that would be awesome! I’m going to start a film studio that specializes in that!

Centurion [2010]

A Roman legion is ambushed by the Picts (a Scottish tribe) and the few survivors must try to make it back safety before they are hunted and killed.

Neil Marshall’s play on the legend (mostly myth) of the Roman 9th legion in Britain – an unstoppable group who went “missing” while guarding their post. What I really liked about the movie is that you are given two sides – both give the viewer equal justification to root for. The Picts are defending their land against invaders – as well as Etain who has her own brutal reasons for wanting to hunt down the Roman scum. Then you have a somewhat likable group of Roman soldiers headed by Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender – who plays the title Centurion) – who you realize are pretty much left up to their own – with no cavalry coming to save them simply looking to get back home.

Marshall gives us his traditional theme of having strong women characters who don’t need men to save their asses – and they don’t need to show their asses. His films are violent and gory – and very masculine in that sense – but you throw in the strong female badasses in his films they are very feminist. That duality is one of my favorite things about Marshall’s films – the female characters don’t cower until they are “saved” – they stand up for themselves the entire time.

I think the cast did their part quite well - Fassbender brought a weight an sympathetic side to Quintus which worked very well and Olga Kurylenko was awesome as the silent assassin Etain. – and though the plot was thin – it was good enough for a fun survival-chase “genre” film. It’s a “you get what you pay for” Neil Marshall film – with plenty of gore and in camera effects – instead of the computer generated nonsense.

I wasn’t as enthusiastic about Marshall’s direction of Centurion as a whole – I felt he had a real energy and eye in his previous works – I’m not sure what really happened in this one. He still managed some beautiful shots – and some great compositions – but it felt a bit more vanilla.

Out of the 4 feature films Neil Marshall has done – it has no place to go but 4th on the list due to the strength of his previous work and obvious weaknesses in Centurion. Being a dork I just realized that this is his first film that didn’t start with D – The Descent, Doomsday & Dog Soldiers – and he was attached to Drive for a long while before Winding Refn took over the project (that would have made a VERY different film – but equally as awesome in a different way).

I liked the movie – but I can easily see how others would think it is derivative and just a boring hack and slash film. It is just a lot of bloody fun.