Centurion (2010)

Load of rubbish!!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Bit shit, good to take the piss out of........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Obviously, movie reviews are subjective and not everyone will agree. The genre of so-called historical fiction is quite popular and one of the staples of Hollywood's bread and butter recipes. This review is not to debate the accuracy of the history depicted in this movie. It is only to critique the movie as a movie. Unfortunately, this movie fails on several levels.The story simply boils down to survival in a brutal world, where humanity is reduced to animal instincts, only wishing or praying for salvation. There are seemingly no good guys or bad guys. They are all amoral simpletons bent on revenge, torture, punishment and the like. Their goal only victories over their enemy and then "going home." The acting is without nuance. All the characters are 2 dimensional with minimal character development. It was hard to like any character in the movie. On the other hand, the editing maintains great pace and rhythm during battle scenes. This was one of the few positives I found while watching battle after battle. At times, in non-battle scenes, however, transitions seemed abrupt and uneven. The cinematography remained atmospheric and crisp throughout, although primarily to enhance gory details or spectacular vistas, the harshness of this world, rather than to create depth and subtext. Indeed, the overall direction seemed overly focused on brutal killing using, featuring a wide variety of cinematic tricks to show all manner of death and killing (to the point of pornography in my opinion). Depictions of battle, facial expressions of hatred, anger, or desperation and fear predominate the multiple close-up shots. The violence was over-emphasized to the detriment of the plot and characters. The fight-flight response was demonstrated on the screen very well but ended up dehumanizing and flattening the story considerably. All in all, there was no depth to this movie and, consequently, it was very difficult to suspend disbelief. Similarly, no sub textual meaning was evident, no clear thematic arc. I would not recommend this movie to anyone other than those interested only in action scenes and on screen brutality and violence. There is a place for action and brutality on the screen unless it is simply done for its own sake.

Cheaply made, predictable, bad special effects, painful acting...why does Fassbender make these films (avoid Assassin's Creed as well)? My gf and I started laughing at it got so predictable. Mostly I am not sure why this film needed to get made? - it just brings nothing to the screen. I think pre-dated GoT so it's not mining that vibe. It actually served it's purpose for me as I needed a bad movie on to minimally distract me as I caught up on email.

I knew this film was set during a time period full of men in armour with swords, I think that's about it really, I was up for giving it a go, directed by Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent). Basically in Roman Britain in the year AD 117, five years before the construction of Hadrian's Wall, Roman centurion Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) is the son of a legendary gladiator, and the sole survivor of a Pictish raid on a Roman frontier fort. Gnaeus Julius Agricola (Raiders of the Lost Ark's Paul Freeman), the Roman governor of Britannia, dispatches the Ninth Legion, legendary army of General Titus Flavius Virilus (Dominic West), to eradicate the Pictish threat and destroy their leader Gorlacon (Festen's Ulrich Thomsen), the legion marches north, they encounter and rescue Dias. The legion are ambushed on unfamiliar ground, Virilus is taken captive, Quintus and his small platoon face a desperate struggle to stay alive behind enemy lines, rescue the general and reach the safety of the Roman frontier. They are forced to endure harsh terrain and evade their remorseless Pict pursuers led by revenge- hungry Pict warrior Etain (Quantum of Solace's Olga Kurylenko), one by one the soldiers fall victim to the savagery of their enemy. In the end, to avoid criticism and other consequences, all records of the Ninth Legion are destroyed, so to this day nobody knows the full truth of what happened to them when they disappeared. Also starring Noel Clarke as Macros, Game of Thrones' Liam Cunningham as Brick, David Morrissey as Bothos, Four Lions' Rizwan Ahmed as Tarak, Imogen Poots as Arianne, JJ Feild as Thax, Dave Legeno as Vortix, Lee Ross as Septus, Ryan Atkinson as Gorlacon's Son and The Living Daylights' Andreas Wisniewski as Commander Gratus. I agree with critics that not a lot of effort went into making a really engrossing story and the characters are not that developed, so there is a slight lack of suspense and emotional involvement, but to be honest, I was paying much more attention to the fight and chase sequences, full of many violent and blood soaked deaths, overall it's an alright historical action thriller. Okay!