Neil Marshall's films: The Descent and Centurion

[alexandral]

Having finished both of Neil Marshall’s films (The Descent and Centurion) close together, I noticed one shortcoming of his style, namely the lack of character development and character depth. What Neil is good at is visual world-building. Both films look good enough to be windows in the real world. But the characters? They don’t seem to be his main

Comments

[oresteia]

That bottom image is very vivid and strong and sell itself, makes me want to know what's going there without ever knowing crap about it. That's some good marketing right there.

Fassbender is all about sex appeal. Mind= Gutter. I admit it.

[alexandral]

That lady was the best thing about the film, and the film was very striking visually..

This is the thing - my mind tends to go to the gutter without any provocation, but not so much with Fassbender. He is ok, though,.

[baleanoptera]

Have you seen Hunger? Because Fassbender is awesome in that.

As for "Centurion", I pretty much agree with queenofthornes, so I'll go with "what she said." there. ;P

Apart from that I found Centurion aesthetically interesting, due to the whole 300 feel the film has. It's as if Zack Snyder's way of depicting the past has become its own style, for better or worse.
Though it makes me happy to think of what Marshall could do with wildfire and Blackwater. A thing I really felt was lacking from GOT was a certain visual identity. Sure, the series was pretty at times - but I didn't feel it properly embraced being a visual medium, and too many times it felt too "bookish", you know? Since the series cannot rely on the internal dialogue that is so essential to Martin it needs to focus more on the visual aspect of the show. (I might have pondered too much on this topic. I'll stop now.)

[alexandral]

No, I might check Hunger at some point, but not very soon as I don't seem to have too much liking for Fassbender.

I agree with you on GoT completely. Looking back , now that I am out of the obsession mode, I think there are two main problems with GoT: First, the book is so big. The 10-episode show can not physically manage all the book material successfully. I think it could have been better to either have the book spread over two or more seasons, or have more episodes.

Second is the visual identity, and not just visual - I would call it "sensory identity" because I have the same problems with music and sounds that I have with the visuals. It is hard to describe it, but although some songs are really beautiful, on the whole, I had few times when I felt as if the sounds were somewhat theatrical and this made me lose the feeling of "reality".

[baleanoptera]

Sensory identity is a good word. In film theory/analysis one often refers to a film's verisimilitude, which encompasses the whole film - not just the plot or the characters. To establish a great verisimilitude the visual and sound side also needs to be taken into context

[nebula99]

I found The Descent terrifying. I get very claustrophobic so I was hyperventilating even before you saw a monster! I do agree on the lack of characterisation and it was ultimately a very depressing film.

[alexandral]

I liked the ending though, it was one fo hose cases when the depressing ending really fitted the story..

[trailer_spot]

Haven't seen "The Descent" because it's not a genre I like. I've seen "Centurion" though. But I don't remember too much and don't have to say a lot about it. I think I liked the beginning, then got bored during much of the "hunt" and just as I wanted to give up I at least "liked" the way the movie ended. I didn't expect it to end that down-beat.
In general I find Neil Marshall overrated. At least measured against the following he has among "fan-boys" and some movie blogs.

As an objective and innocent bystander ;) I actually "get" the attraction and charisma of Michael Fassbender. And I haven't even seen two of his most personal movies "Hunger" and "Fish Tank". And also not "Jane Eyre". And he also has some interesting movies coming up. I'd say it's just a matter of time until he will win an Oscar.

[alexandral]

I agree with you on Neil Marshall in general - I think he is really quite good with visuals and creating the atmosphere, but the visuals are NOT everything ! Game of Thrones will benefit from his approach, though, as pone of their weaknesses is visual side of things.

I am not at all impressed by Fassbender, but I guess I haven't seen him in anything even semi-serious (X-Men was vastly overrated). To be fair, he did rather splendidly in "Glorious Basterds"