Centurion (2010) [Blu-ray]
Action | Adventure | Drama

An explanation for the mysterious historical disappearance of the 9th Legion? I think not.

AD 117. The Roman Empire stretches from Egypt to Spain, and East as far as the Black Sea. But in northern Britain, the relentless onslaught of conquest has ground to a halt in face of the guerrilla tactics of an elusive enemy: the savage and terrifying Picts. Quintus Dias (Fassbender), sole survivor of a Pictish raid on a Roman frontier fort, marches north with General Virilus' (West) legendary Ninth Legion, under orders to wipe the Picts from the face of the earth and destroy their leader Gorlacon. But when the legion is ambushed on unfamiliar ground, and Virilus taken captive, Quintus faces a desperate struggle to keep his small platoon alive behind enemy lines. Enduring the harsh terrain and evading their remorseless Pict pursuers led by revenge-hungry Pict Warrior Etain (Kurylenko), the band of soldiers race to rescue their General and to reach the safety of the Roman frontier.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, November 5, 2010 Centurion belongs to that category of films where the characters, without a trace of irony, shout stuff like "Hold the lines!" and "We live united, or die divided!" It's the sort of movie where the men are all grizzled, battle-hardened badasses and the women—without exception—are drop dead gorgeous. Warriors trudge single-file up snow-covered, Lord of the Rings-style mountainsides, then descend into the valley to fight with courage and die with honor. Limbs are lopped off, heads are cleaved, and CGI blood spurts dramatically into the air. The body count spirals dizzyingly and yet there's a sense of heroic nobility in the violence. You know the type. The associated sub-genres are many—the sword 'n' sandal adventure, the historical epic, the brothers in arms war story—but this kind of film might generally be called Male Fantasy Fulfillment. It's the province of the Mel Gibsons and Russell Crowes of the world, and it's perhaps best exemplified by Braveheart, The Patriot, Apocalypto, and Gladiator. There's a little bit of all four movies in Centurion, a lesser entry in that genre that might also be called "dad films."

The setting is Britannia circa A.D. 117, as Roman legions push deep into what is now the Scottish Highlands, attempting to wrestle control of the region from the native Picts, woad-adorned guerilla warriors who are understandably pissed off about the invasion and just want to protect their homeland. (Prepare for some undercooked allusions to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.) After a Pictish raid wipes out a Roman outpost on the frontier, governor Agricola (Paul Freeman) dispatches the legendary Ninth Legion, led by jovial General Titus Virilus (The Wire's Dominic West), with orders to destroy the enemy entirely. On their way to the front, the legion rescues centurion Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender), the sole survivor of the overrun garrison, but that's the last of their good luck. The Ninth soon stumbles into a fireball-laden trap set by Etain (sultry erstwhile Bond girl Olga Kurylenko), a vengeful Pictish "she-wolf" who had her tongue cut out by the Romans as a child. Now, of course, she's out for blood. The legion takes some serious casualties, General Titus is kidnapped and whisked away to the camp of Gorlacon (Ulrich Thomsen), the chief of the Picts, and the remaining six soldiers, under Quintus' command, stage a last-ditch rescue attempt.

This is a rag-tag and, given the nature of the Roman Empire, unsurprisingly multi-ethnic crew—their scant numbers include a Greek, an African marathon runner, and an Arab cook—and they'll do anything to rescue their beloved general, who has earned their trust by fighting right alongside them. Ah, soldierly camaraderie! The film quickly enters "men on a mission" mode before ultimately becoming a desperately trying to evade the enemy chase movie, a la Apocalypto. Throughout, you can expect almost ceaseless violence, the rough and tumble battle scenes hitting hard and often, complete with gory displays of ax wounds, severed limbs, and decapitations, ketchup-red digital blood spraying everywhere. (The only splashes of color in a film that, like most war epics, has a gritty, almost entirely desaturated palette.) The breakneck rush is periodically broken by quiet scenes that are meant to flesh out the characters, but these seem merely perfunctory, and the dialogue—"I made a promise to a general to get his soldiers home. That is my task. That is my duty."—is a stale compilation of vaguely noble-sounding war movie chestnuts. These guys are much better at grunting than monologizing, and bound to such dopey lines, the actors have little with which to work. Still, there are a few decent turns. Michael Fassbender shows some of the stoic, unwavering dignity that he displayed in Hunger, and the equally restrained Olga Kurylenko—she plays a mute after all—smolders with internal rage, a smoky-eyed, dead sexy battle maiden bent on revenge.

The film is directed by Neil Marshall, who previously gave us the cult werewolf classic Dog Soldiers and the subterranean slasher Descent, which did for spelunking—and this is an overused comparison, I know—what Jaws did for going to the beach. Here, he's working on a larger scale than he ever has before, and while there are some impressive all-out action sequences in Centurion, the hack 'n' slash violence quickly becomes rote, especially since it's really not backed up by much of a story. The chilly, near-desolate frontier of the Roman Empire—"the asshole of the world," as one character puts it—is evocative, and Marshall nails the grimy period details, but the film fails to involve us mentally or emotionally. When Quintus Dias eventually meets and falls for a bonnie flaxen-haired Pict—played by the lovely, but unfortunately named Imogen Poots—it seems less like a genuine turn of events than an oh, yeah, I guess we need a love interest in here somewhere concession. The only thematic supplement to the non-stop carnage is the not-so-thinly veiled subtext about what happens to the armies of imperialist empires when they go a-marchin' where they're not wanted. "This is a new kind of war," says Dias, "a war without honor, a war without end." Yeah, Quintus, we hear you.

Neil Marshall's Centurion delivers relentlessly gory, Roman-era battle violence, but little else, as its skin of visceral action is hung on a skeletal story that doesn't have much dramatic meat on its bones. If you're just looking for a bloody good time, you might want to give the film a go, but don't expect to be moved by the highlands adventures of Quintus Dias. Regardless, Centurion looks and sounds fantastic on Blu-ray, so you're at least insured the spectacle of stellar A/V performance. Worth a rental—and possibly a purchase—if you're up for a grittier take on the sword 'n' sandal genre.

[CSW] -2- This could have been good but there was nothing about the how the guerrilla tactics of the Picts were developed or implemented or how they came to use them, only betrayal on all sides and seemingly senseless bloody battles. Vengeance, ruthlessness, and semi-survival were used to postulate an explanation for the mysterious historical disappearance of the 9th Legion
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC -- No D-Box

º º