Centurion was ok, not a great film, not a bad film, maybe not even an average film! It had some kick ass action, fantastic locations, story wise it worked well because it was a straight forward ‘hiding from the enemy, fighting to survive’ fare, and it had some very good acting, led by Michael Fassbender. On the flipside, the characters were only ok: all in dire need of being more fleshed out allowing us to associate with them as people rather than expendable Roman soldiers. But the films greatest flaw was its lack of a definitive good side. I really didn’t know who was good and who was bad, the oppressors or the oppressed. Convention would usually be that the Oppressed are the Victims, the Oppressors are the baddies. But centurion does not play it this was round. As for the films take on this, it’s quite clear who the good guys are, who we meant to be routing for, it’s just why would you want to?
The story centers on a supposed actual event concerning the disappearance of the Ninth Legion (of the Roman army), as they march north into Scotland from the city of York in northern England with orders to wipe out The Picts, the populaces of the north who had defended their ground from the start of the Roman occupation, and the film’s opening tells us that this conflict has lasted twenty years, so Roman commanders In order to impress their seniors and potentially secure a return to their homeland, issue orders to the ninth legion to go and wipe The Picts out once and for all.
A mysterious and mute female by the name of Etain is introduced as a tough and experienced scout. She is to accompany the ninth legion on their quest north into what we now know as Scotland. The ninth legion, during its march North are ambushed by the Picts who seem mighty well prepared to take on a three thousand strong Roman Legion, it is then revealed that Etain is a Pict spy who orchestrated the ambush. This is a pretty cool action scene, it’s violent and nicely shot considering how chaotic it is, the camera really gets in there with the close quarters action.
The aftermath sees a slew of massacred Romans, gradually the few survivors make themselves known to each other and they regroup and try and figure out what they are going to do. They know that the general in charge of the Legion was captured, so their first point of call is to go and find and rescue him. Makes sense to me. This is where we get out first glimpse at the movies tone. Miles behind enemy lines, a rag tag group of (less than 10) Romans must move carefully, silently and keep hidden because drawing any attention from the Picts will see them outnumbered and slaughtered.
Reaching the Picts encampment, the Romans wait until dark to move in and find their general. When the time comes there’s a lot of sneaking up and slashing throats, a very typical filmic approach to the infiltration where the whole thing seems to go down without a hitch, slashed throats, throwing weapons, perfectly timed nobody really makes a sound it’s as if the Romans had practiced this a thousand times in a mock-up of the Pict camp like the SAS do with their hostage situations. One of the “friendly” Romans finds himself face to face with son of the Pict leader, he kills him. They have to leave the general as his chains are too heavy to cut through and attention as now been alerted. When the Pict leader discovers his dead son, he demands the Heads of the Romans responsible. That’s our movie, the Romans trying to get back to their base whilst the Pict’s hunt them.
We have already been a little deterred as to who are actually the good people here, It is revealed that Etain (the bad ass female Pict scout) saw her family butchered by the Romans, and the reason she is mute is the Romans cut out her tongue. I didn’t understand why the film was telling us this. Why is it trying to make us sympathize with the side we meant to fear? The greatest downfall for me was this lack of goody and baddy stance, but I didn’t think this out of principle, I think it because it affected how I felt towards the rest of the movie. Can you remember the dread you felt in the Lord of the Rings when Frodo was being chased by the Black Riders? Having to hide else getting caught would mean certain death. I absolutely love the concept of hiding from the enemy when you’re outnumbered, outgunned (or in this case out-sworded). But as the viewer we need to witness the threat that our main characters were hiding from, but it just wasn’t there for me. The Picts should have been defined as sadistic, violent barbaric animals, but they weren’t. The Remains of the ninth Legion, the good guys, they weren’t defined enough as ordinary men with hearts and morals, although for Fassbender, the ending stages of the movie reveals his emotional side a little more. This was just too big a deal for me to over-look but I went with it, and credit to the film, it still plays out well and there’s plenty of action, fights, decapitations, eye gouges, limb hacking offage and one or two close encounters to keep you engaged. I just didn’t feel the fear of the friendly Romans because the Pict enemy wasn’t threatening enough for me.
The Picts were subtitled; they spoke in the (now extinct) Pictish language, the Romans spoke in 21st Century English. The Romans in actuality spoke Latin (Greek in some areas). We weren’t quite dealing with the Apocalypto level of authenticity, it would’ve been a pretty big deal to make a British film for a western audience using a dead language, Imagine the casting for something like that. Finding a bunch of western actors that speak Latin would be difficult, that’s probably why we don’t have many Latin language films, in Britain or America anyway. God knows there may be some crazy underground Italian Indy film movement that makes films purely in Latin. Subs for me create no problems, I love subs, so the Language makes no difference, Japanese, German, whatever, as long as the Subs are in English I’m fine with that. But what this really comes down to is... language has, and will always be a cinema anachronism so necessary that none of us would even question it. It does make me wonder though, why films set in ancient times feel the need to deliver twentieth century English in the their best Shakespeare voice. Language in film is too deep to discuss properly here though, let’s just say Centurion didn’t entirely overlook it by having the Picts speak in an old language, but when it came to the Romans, I think they had to make them as relatable as possible (and still didn’t manage to do it very well).
The star of the Show for me was the action. It was violent and bloody, and as I’ve already said, very nicely shot in places. And authentic! It’s always good to see it taking a few hacks until a head pops off, maybe it’s more visually pleasing to see a clean slice off in one, but not every weapon has the ability to do that.
Neil Marshall was the Director; he’s the guy who did Dog Soldiers, a quality British horror flick if you haven’t seen it! He also did The Descent which I haven’t seen yet. Centurion is essentially DTV; however it has high production value, a very talented cast and some top notch special effects. It’s a fairly short one at just over 90 minutes. I suppose I’d recommend it for some fairly easy going hack and slash fun, just don’t expect too much from it.
