Four Reasons You Don't Have to Like Amazon's Britannia.
By: Marcus Cestius Pullus
Early January the world was treated to a number of trailers for Amazon's venture into the costumed drama, Britannia. Seeing the trailers for the show, I could only imagine the collective sigh and pent up rage among my fellow reenactors within the Roman Army Talk, Legio XIIII and Legio XX community. I promised my fellow legionaries and the producers of the show, I would watch the January 26th premiere and give it my critical review. Not just as a historian but as a critic (a job I held in College at one point). So I present my 4 reasons why you don't have to like "Britania".
#4: Producers Still Cannot Get Roman Costuming Right: Whenever a Roman-themed film, show or documentary premieres, I know the first thing that the reenacting, living history and museum community look at besides the sets, is the costumes. While it is true that a 90%- historically accurate film is not always great (Gettysburg, I am looking at you), and the history community is not the number one customers for producers to sell their art to, they could still do a little extra work on the costuming. There are works with reasonably decent costumes, and great, enthralling stories ("Rome" comes to mind, I can watch and rewatch that show forever), there are also some good films and shows with halfway decent costuming ("Starz Spartacus", "Centurion", and "Gladiator") and just horrible movies all around ("Last Legion", 2016's "Ben-Hur" and "Pompeii" all need to be cleansed by fire). I mean the film "300" was not visually accurate in anyway but is still an amazing piece of film. With "Britania", the burden of costuming fell on Ann Maskrey, who did an incredible job as Costume Designer on all three Hobbit films and had worked in some costuming capacity on other historical epics (such as "Last of the Mohicans"). But much of her designs follow the sword and sandals formula of yore. We see the Legio IX Hispania (of course because we cannot do the story of Britannia without the legendary, and overused Legio IX, even though Plautius brought four legions with him. Legio XIIII Gemina may get their nod on screen some day chin up. On the upside there was a small nod to Legio XX Valeria Victrix in the season finale). under the command of Aulus Plautius (played by David Morrisey of "Walking Dead" fame), decked out in the typical go-to, of a black leather segmata, a Hollywoodism by the way that needs to die. You are fighting Celts in Briton, you're not at the after-hours party for Dragon-Con. And what the hell is it with the black 14th century gambeseon looking things under the armor? Get a subarmalis like a goddamned human being. Also the early Deepeka gladii makes it on screen appearence. The only saving grace for reenactors was the handful of hamata that were sprinkled about, but this is immediately and completely ruined by the Japanned (flat black spray paint WTF?) helmets.
And with the popularity of HBO's "Game of Thrones" we see an an ever increase in period shows with dead animals over the shoulders, ala Jon Snow. Not only are we rewarded with scenes of Morissey's Aulus Plautius with a large fur collar, but we also are treated to dead animal fashion with Celtic Queen Kerra (played by Kelly Reilly). Coincidentally it seems the only one not wearing any animals or fur was the goddamned vexillarius.
I reached out to the Roman Army Talk and Legio XIIII Gemina community for photos to make comparison. And maybe as a plea to Producers and Hollywood. Please if its Imperial, metal segmata please. No more leather daddies.With that we can see costumes and arms drastically different than what the public gets treated to on screen. Which as an academic and living historian makes my job much harder.
#3: It is Game of Thrones in 43 C.E. Britannia:
Dead animal wearing aside, Britannia does borrow heavily from HBO's "Game of Thrones", except it is not able to execute it well or capitalize it. We can quickly go down the list on this one: Political Intrigue and Backstabbing? Check! Patriarchs being executed by decapitation? Check! A young spunky girl and large foul mouthed cynic journeying together? Check! Older royal Matron talking shit to everyone? Check! and some sexy incest? Holy crap check... Unfortunately even though this show contains all the tropes of "Game of Thrones", it is unable to do any of these really well. The characters and their political allegiances are introduced very quickly, and are not well developed. People who you couldn't care less about die, and the backstories are not well established to it gets confusing. While some of the snarky dialogue is sometimes on point, a lot of the actors trying to bring Sandor Clegane or Jamie Lannister to this show fail at their task. We even get to see a mage who speaks to the gods and screws over kings in the form of the Druid Varen (played by Pirate's of the Caribbean's Mackenzie Crook)
#2: David Morrisey can't stop playing Governors:
I have nothing really against David Morrisey per se, but it seems he just cannot get away from being Governor (spoiler alert: historically speaking Aulus Plautius subdues Britannia and becomes its first Governor from 43-47 C.E.) As Plautius, Morrisey borrows heavily from his experience as Bothos, in Neil Marshall's "Centurion," playing up the hardcore, manly, Roman General in the vein of his co-star, Dominic West's General Titus Flavius Virilus. Although he plays the iron-handed Roman General trope to the T, and admittedly, has a few decent scenes, he still comes off as pretty cardboard and does not really become that memorable. I say just give him an eye patch and a machine gun and let him raise hell against the Celts. The acting itself seems to be an issue throughout the film. Some of the actors nail their characters ( Zoë Wanamaker as Queen Antedia kills it) but many of the Romans and Celts are not even really that memorable. Even Star War's own Ian McDiarmid feels kind of dull and looks like he is only there for the paycheck in between Comic-Cons.
#1: I Need to Take LSD On the Next Viewing:
I believe going into Britannia as a new viewer, one has to realize it is not a historical epic, or telling a historical story. It is as though Michael Hirst and Bryan Fuller had some sort of love child and that love child directed a show. Instead, it is an allegory, using Britannia of the early 1st century C.E. to discuss themes, such as Imperialism, Religion and the questioning of it, industry vs spirituality, etc. The show really executes these themes, some really well, others in a heavy-handed manner. We get it, Rome is the industrialized West, and the Celts are those nations impacted by Imperialism and Colonization. It would have had more impact if it was less hammy.
As for the religion aspect, it enters some really drugged up territory. The druids always come off as constantly high and shaky, having visions and just tweaking out. Why does a religious experience always look like heroin addiction? They even have a rave complete with oracle woman on E (more so than 300). But these elements end up getting confusing (we even have Demonic possession thrown in) and does not do much to help along the plot or deepen the characters. As one critic put it, its like if "Game of Thrones took hallucinogens." In the end, the Druid elements left me confused and longing for more Roman/Celtic interactions. In the end,
"Britannia" is not a horrible show, but it is not a truly amazing either. It is easily forgettable after one viewing, and leaves the watcher in a sort of ho hum state.. "Britania" tries to be the violent epic in the vein of "Game of Thrones," the costumed drama like "Vikings," with a smattering of the surreal of "American Gods", yet it manages to miss its mark in all of these attempts.
I give Amazon's "Britania" 3 out of 5 Denarrii. Next time I will give four good reasons why you should watch Amazon's Britannia. So stay tuned.
Vae Victus!
Marcus Cestius Pullus