Well, I finally got to see Centurion - or at least a sanitized, airline version of it - on a long-haul flight. I loved the scenery, and I liked the costumes and uniforms. It wasn't bad as an action film, that is, something about one step up from computer games. But what irks me about films like Centurion (and the trailer for The Eagle too) is that so many film-makers seem to be stuck in a nostalgic, "noble savage" groove about the ancient world. Why can't they appreciate that, despite the cruelties, the mainstream cultures of Greece, Rome and even Byzantium were A Good Thing?
I fully agree. We will need to wait a long time for even a book, let alone a movie, to show the
Roman world in a modern (for them) and efficient context, a story where the plot is about the things which happen and the backdrop is just the backdrop, one set in modest villas rather than palaces or slums. It strikes me that the
Roma sub Rosa series of
Gordian the Finder might fit the bill if it is filmed. Much of the settings in pre-Imperial
Rome involves fairly modest villas in
Rome, and
Gordian comes across as a typically struggling middle-class guy, well below the Senators and such like
still having a modest
home and delighting in plumbing improvements and pottering around the garden.