Centurion (2010)

Directed by: Neil Marshall
Written by: Neil Marshall
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Olga Kurylenko, Noel Clarke, David Morrissey, JJ Feild, Axelle Carolyn, Dave Legeno, Ulrich Thomsen, James Currie, Dhaffer L'Abidine, Imogen Poots, Rachael Stirling

The Romans were fond of expanding their empire, and this fondness often had occasion to venture into the big island of England. Their accomplishments in the south were reasonably well settled; the Roman Empire successfully retained control of that portion of Britain for many, many years. The north, however, wasn't to be won so easily. The Picts - which was a loose confederation of Celtic tribes - weren't obliged to go under Roman law, and they were very skilled at killing those that might try to bring that rule by force.

In goes the feared and respected 9th Roman Legion, led by General Titus Flavius Virilus and guided by a trusted female Pictish scout to show the way. To say things go badly is a bit of an understatement; their guide quickly shows herself to be not quite as trustworthy as they'd hoped, and the Picts are proven masters of the ambush. The Romans are also proven too stupid to get out of the way of giant flaming boulders. The entire army is quickly decimated, and the Picts take the small remaining band alive for torture and sport.

The captured Romans really want to live, of course, and so eventually manage an escape. The problem is one of their number, a psychotic loose cannon of a Roman, manages to kill the son of the Pictish leader on his way out. This sends the leader into a dark fury. A hunting party is quickly arranged and charged with the task of bringing back the heads of the escaped Roman soldiers.

This is the setup laid out in the first act, and all that follows is a story of pursuit and survival as the small group of beleaguered Romans struggle to flee the country, all the while being chased and picked off by a furious troop of Pictish warriors.

Centurion has a loose basis in history, though one that has been downplayed as romanticism. There certainly was a Roman 9th Legion, and it also did disappear; one persisting story is that they went north into Britain to fight the Picts and simply never returned. Other stories say that they were decimated in battles in Judaea or what is now modern day Iran. It's considered more likely that the 9th Legion simply fell victim to various military consolidations brought on by the ever shrinking Roman Empire, and simply might have had its ranks ingested by other military bodies of the time.

For inspiration, director Neil Marshall must have been thinking of the war sparked by Queen Boudica around 60 AD. Boudica was ruler of a Celtic tribe which suffered brutal injustices at the hands of the abusive Romans; her land was forcefully annexed, she was flogged in public, and then forced to watch as Romans gang-raped her daughters in front of her. Insanely furious and far from broken, she led a rebellion that stormed down from the north of Britain all the way to the south, killing literally tens of thousands of Roman citizens along the way. Among the slain was the near entire body of the then Roman 9th legion; beginning to sound remotely familiar to the synopsis of Centurion? If not, let me be more blunt; both the plot of Centurion and the very real war led by Queen Boudica involved the attempted annexation of land, the cruel abuse of a child of the local ruler by the Romans, and then the subsequent flight and slaughter of Romans as the angry locals, mad for revenge, chased them south.

History lessons aside (as interesting as I find them), Centurion has a few things for it, and a lot against. To its benefit, the fight scenes are a riot. These are extremely bloody affairs with chopping swords and axes, limbs flying and blood spraying everywhere. Decapitations are a film favorite, and it features numerous gruesome shots of necks and heads being hacked through, exposing bloody spraying stumps. It's bloody, gory stuff and fans of big battle scenes will definitely get their fix. All of this is filmed with a good eye for cinematography, which holds through the entire film as being rich and well defined.

The biggest problems of Centurion seem to lie in the blurry lines between fantasy and fiction. Centurion purports to be a film based upon real historical events, yet uses characters that would be more at home in the pages of Heavy Metal magazine. The worst of these are the deadly female Pict warriors, who are all very attractive by modern conventional standards, as well as extremely good at killing armed and armored soldiers. I know women can fight, but the problem here is that I just don't buy the women in Centurion would be that good at it in a "real life" situation. They are just way too skinny, way too attractive, and not at all believable as sadistic killing machines in what is supposed to be a something of a historically accurate adventure film.

It's not just the women among the warriors that are not really believable - the fleeing Romans bumble into the home of an outcast witch living in isolation, and are, for a time, held safe under her care. This witch, Adrianne, was a Pict who had been banished as a witch and sent out to live by herself. She's also totally hot, wears makeup, and quickly summons a spell of sexual tension between herself and the Roman lead man. I'm confused on why the Picts would banish a "witch" anyway, as they were pagans and fears of witchcraft was more of a Christian thing. Keep in mind Christians were not necessarily powerful in 115 AD; Rome did not even have a Christian emperor until nearly two centuries later when Constantine I assumed power in 306 AD. It seems less likely that Adrianne was banished due to being a witch and more likely that she was written in as a clumsy contrivance so that our lead Roman could get some strange tail.

I love a good senseless fantasy film, populated by thin Heavy Metal style comic book characters and a lot of blood. The problem with Centurion is that it has one foot in fantasy and one in reality, and it doesn't seem to know in which it really wants to be. The history it is based on is rich and thought provoking; yet the tale is told using thin, poorly defined characters, cheap plot devices, and an obvious affection for tough and beautiful female warriors born straight out of male juvenile fantasy. Given Marshall's obvious adoration for deadly women, I wish history-based Centurion had been completely scratched and a remake (or derivative) of Red Sonja had instead been made. At least then we could forget about history, sit back, and just watch hot female warriors kick ass without caring if they got their facts straight.

Rating: (3 out of 5):