Cinefile

Neil Marshall’s Centurion is a bloody and brutal cinematic retaliation against the green screen finesse of Zack Snyder’s popular sword n’ sandals epic 300. Marshall, who made the impressive, claustrophobic thriller The Descent just a few years ago, trades in the CGI landscapes of 300 for the tough and cold terrains of its unforgiving European wilderness; the result is a movie that looks very distinct and sometimes feels very exciting. However, when it’s not sweeping us with its magnificent vistas or its visceral combat sections, it falls into the similar trappings of other mediocre historical epics: hokey moments of male camaraderie, underwritten roles for women and a forced sense of pathos for its heroes.

The underrated Michael Fassbender (Hunger, Fish Tank) stars as the Roman warrior Centurion Quintus Dias. At the film’s start, Dias is seen shirtless and running through some terribly snowy mountains. This guy’s a real trooper. Historically, the film takes place around 117 A.D.--but outside of wanting the audience to distinguish the “good guys” (Roman soldiers) from the “bad guys” (Celtic Picts), the film isn’t too interested in historical potency. These screen characters are primarily toy soldiers who are destined to deliver the bloody goods. For those audience members who want more personality in their heroes (and more potency in their drama), they should just wait and rent Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood on DVD next month.

Anyways, back to Centurion. Dias eventually finds himself in the Ninth Legion which is commanded by the charismatic and brash Titus Flavius Virilus, played to cheeky hell by Dominic West (of HBO’s The Wire). Under the orders of a seedy Roman governor, the Ninth Legion heads foolishly into the woods to battle the violent Picts, a thrash of guerilla fighters far more frightening than the aliens in this summer’s Predators remake. In real life there isn’t much documentation on the Picts--other than the fact that they were ruthless and wrote the book on guerilla warfare--but Marshall and his artistic team do a good job of creating these screen villains. In Centurion, they paint their faces with war paint, don some scary-looking animal skins and tend to look more Samoan than Scottish. In plain terms, these Picts do a good job of giving off the “don’t fuck with us” vibe.

Through some surprising plot developments that I will not reveal, Dias and company find themselves playing a cat and mouse game with a group of Picts up and down the war terrain of the mountains and dense forest. Some of the film’s weak moments begin to surface during these long episodes (an awkward cave scene involving name intros feels forced) but they are saved by some bloody kill-shots. Let’s see: there’s face decapitation, arrows through the mouths, man-eating wolves and even a scene where a (ten year old?) boy is suffocated to death. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

The fact of the matter is that movies like Centurion already have a built-in loyal movie audience. It’s the kind of movie where its core audience goes “Ewww!” and “Ahhh!” in joyous unison. It’s silly but not campy, violent but never too serious. For me to fully discourage you from seeing the flick would mean that I deal in absolutes--which in this case I can’t. On the other hand, Centurion the movie is built on absolutes. Consider it’s tagline: Fight or Die.