Centurion review

Here's my review of Centurion for last Friday's Irish Times...

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Olga Kurylenko, David Morrissey, Noel Clarke and Liam Cunningham
Directed by Neil Marshall
General release, 15a, 97 minutes

Friends, Romans, countrymen, brace thy selves for the manliest film of the season. Aye, for Centurion is not only armed with Romans fighting Picts, but also with some of the manliest dialogue this side of the WWF. “Her soul is an empty vessel,” one soldier says of the villainess, “and only Roman blood can fill it”.

The first manly man we meet is Quintus Dias (Fassbender), a Roman stationed in Northern Britain in the 2nd Century AD and promptly taken captive by Picts. He eventually escapes and finds solace with the 9th Legion. Led by the volatile, but magnificently named Virilus (Dominic West), Quintus joins the soldiers and their mute Pict tracker Etain (Kurylenko) in a campaign.

To the surprise of her employers, but not the audience, Etain betrays the Romans and an army of Picts slaughters most of the legion, taking Virilus hostage and leaving Quintus to lead the small handful of survivors. Pursued by Etain, Quintus and company are hunted through the harsh British landscape.

In the decade or so since Gladiator unleashed hell, we’re still waiting for an equally stirring swords and sandals film. While Centurion lacks the panache of Ridley Scott’s epic, it’s certainly more fun than, say, Kingdom of Heaven or Alexander. Indeed, as directed by Neil Marshall (The Descent), Centurion would have more in common with modern action movies like Predator or Behind Enemy Lines. The limb-lopping fight scenes, meanwhile, echo Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Despite its classy cast, little is expected of the actors beyond a strong presence, and as demonstrated in Hunger and Inglourious Basterds, Fassbender has that in spades. He’s believable as a warrior you’d follow into battle, though he’s also saddled with a terribly superfluous voiceover. Bereft of a meaty plot, Centurion doesn’t deliver much historical drama or intrigue, but provides muddy, bloody action scenes and a simple, effective narrative.