Britannia (2018)

"Absurdly Entertaining"

Sky / Vertigo / Amazon / etc's attempt to jump on the Game of Thrones bandwagon gets a DVD and Blu-ray release from Sony. But does it ride that bandwagon with pride or slip, fall off and land squarely on its embarrassed bottom?

It's 43 AD in a fantasy version of Britain where the sun shines quite a lot, the water is clear, and it's warm enough to wander around wearing very little, especially if you're an attractive female character (score several points on the exploitation-cum-GoT-ometer for that at least.)

The Romans are coming! Or at least David Morrisey and his averagely good legion is. I'm guessing this because their standards have LEG-AVG written in gold on them. Is Britain not worthy of the best? It would seem not.

As usual, every British community within spitting distance of each other is fighting. The two main contingents are the Blues led by Zoe Wanamaker going full Vivenne Westwood, and the not-Blues led by Ian McDiarmuid who has instead opted for a ginger theme to his tribe, specifically his two children played by Kelly Reilly with her frequent Derek Zoolander Blue Steel expression, and Julian Rhind-Tutt. His wife is played by Liana Cornell who seems to be channelling late 1970s Joan Collins and for that I take my hat off to her.

The fate of the British tribes seems to be decided by Skeletor (MacKenzie Crook) who lives at Castle Grayskull with a bunch of similarly cadaverous weirdos. He's the one who dictates who lives, who dies, who gets flayed alive and who has to eat what look like mint imperials before being slaughtered at Stonehenge, etc etc.

As historical dramas go, BRITANNIA is about as accurate as HAWK THE SLAYER, and less accurate than CARRY ON CLEO or Hammer's THE VIKING QUEEN. That's hardly the point, though. What we have here is a riotous attempt at doing epic fantasy using the Roman settlement of Britain as an excuse for it all. There's a hefty dose of supernatural weirdness, the locations are beautiful, the photography is gorgeous, all the parts are played with admirable gusto and some of the shots and set-ups are breathtaking. 

So I find myself unable to be hard on BRITANNIA in any way at all. It's well-made, engrossing, has the courage of its daft convictions and as a result ends up being tremendous fun. It's like watching a bunch of 21st century actors with more enthusiasm than sense engaging in some sort of misguided drug-fuelled live action role play. I kept expecting someone to run onto a main road or for a helicopter to fly over. I do hope there's a second series. And if there is, I really hope they choose Spinal Tap's 'Stonehenge' for the theme tune this time.  

Sony's disc release contains all nine episodes of the first season of BRITANNIA, plus two featurettes - 'Rome's Pagan Nightmare' and 'Bloody Birth of Britain'. 

The delirious daftness that is BRITANNIA is getting a DVD & Blu-ray release from Sony on Monday 26th March 2018

A Man For All Seasons (1966)

“As Fine a Slice of 16th Century Political Intrigue As You Can Get”

Fred Zinnemann’s excellent film version of Robert Bolt’s play about the political and religious intrigues that led to the execution of Sir Thomas More gets a dual format UK Blu-ray and DVD release courtesy of Eureka.

         England, 1530: King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) is married to Katherine of Aragon but wants a divorce as she is ‘barren as a brick’ according to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (Orson Welles). When the cardinal dies he names Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) as his successor as Lord Chancellor. Unfortunately Sir Thomas is a staunch Roman Catholic, refuses to support King Henry’s wishes, and when the monarch makes himself head of the church in England refuses to accept that as well.

Needless to say the king is displeased, and plans are made to discredit and despatch Sir Thomas. Unfortunately for everyone, More is not just honest and conscientious, he also happens to be well trained in the law, and thus begins a lengthy stay in the Tower of London, culminating in his trial for high treason.

         Historical movies are always a bit of a juggling act between avoiding going full Cecil B DeMille in an attempt to keep an audience interested, and getting your facts right. Faced with both this challenge and the fact that A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS was originally a play, Zinnemann did all the right things in getting Bolt to adapt his own script, breaking up the dialogue scenes with some interesting, almost dreamlike visuals (I especially liked his obsession with showing old buildings reflected in water) and, of course, recruiting a bunch of top-notch actors to keep those dialogue scenes interesting (the above plus Leo McKern, Wendy Hiller, Susannah York, Nigel Davenport and a young John Hurt amongst others). 

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS deservedly won six Academy Awards (film, director, best actor for Scofield, screenplay, photography for Ted Moore and costumes  for Elizabeth Haffenden and Joan Bridge) and possibly deserved more - the music by Georges Delerue is sparse but effective, with the same lyrical quality as some of the imagery, especially the opening titles.

Eureka’s Blu-ray looks excellent, and we get a number of extras, including a feature length commentary from film historians Nick Redman, Julie Kirgo and Lem Dobbs, a thirty minute highly informative talking head piece from Neil Sinyard, a documentary on Thomas More from 2007 if you want to know a bit more about him, and a booklet with new writing on the film from James Oliver. 

The dual format Blu-ray and DVD release of Fred Zinnemann's A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS is out from Eureka on Monday 20th February 2017