Centurion (2010) – on rental. I’m always a big sucker for historical dramas, especially that centered on the ancient Roman civilization. Centurion was released last year in theatres here, but I gave it a miss on account of that early reviews of this Brit film were decidedly mixed.
The film spins what seems to be a mostly fictional yarn on what might have happened to one of Caesar’s most famous legions – the Legion IX – which according to the historical account, vanished in Caledonia (where Scotland is today) at about AD117, approximately 60 years after Caesar’s death. Historians have speculated possibilities that include that the Legion simply disbanded, or that it was swarmed and obliterated by the Pictish hordes. Centurion goes with the latter scenario, depicting the Legion’s massacre in full, bloody and gory fashion – and no this really isn’t a spoiler as elements of this is shown in the film’s public trailers. The original thought in the film though goes entirely in its story of a small band of Roman survivors of this massacre, and their attempts to reach back friendly lines through Pict-controlled territory.
We’re introduced to the key players early on. There’s Quintus Dias, played by Michael Fassbender, a Centurion with the Legion who’s deployed at an outlying outpost that gets overrun early on in the movie. There’s General Virilus, played by Dominic West pulling a cross between Russell Crowe’s Maximus and Gerald Butler’s Leonidas, the charismatic and very skilled commander of the Legion, and Etain, a female Pitish scout with a hidden agenda played by Olga Kurylenko. This lead cast is supplemented by a small band of supporting actors playing the other Roman survivors and pursuing Pict warriors, most of whom are relative unknowns but they all look reasonably distinct so that when the body counts start clocking in, it’s at least possible to easily tell who’s dead and who’s left.
The film was shot on location at the United Kingdom, and uses the magnificent backdrops to full advantage. There’s obvious CG in a couple of spots that clearly look manufactured when they show up on screen, but putting aside also the fact that the story takes place in early winter and the limited color palette that results from that, for the most part the film looks gorgeous. The action scenes, especially important since the film is really more an action than historical piece, are a mixed bag. There’s scale, especially the violent confrontation early on in the film showing the Legion’s demise for all their superior training and tactics. It’s also very violent. Expect to see lots of ways to get killed with sharp objects. Unfortunately, a lot of the fight and combat scenes are steady-cam shot with a lot of quick cuts. It was mildly migraine-inducing, and very difficult to follow fights in the encounters involving more than a few persons at a time.
There’s not much to say about the story. There isn’t a lot of subtlety, characterization is reserved only for the three leads and there isn’t a lot of it even then, and loose story ends are tied up by the end of the film’s very economic run length of 97 minutes.
In all, a very average film and watchable as long as you see it for what it is; an unsophisticated action film set against a historical incident.
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