Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Rating: 9/10 (11 August 2010)

Unlike the big-budget disappointment of 'Clash of the Titans', 'Centurion' is rather low-key, with no real big name stars or any 3D gimmicks. Fortunately, 'Centurion' is everything 'Clash of the Titans' should have been. There's an interesting quest story, atmospheric mise-en-scene and â€“ more importantly â€“ plenty of blood-and-guts action. This is not your Hollywood sword-and-sandals movie, polished within an inch of its life and designed to please everyone.
The plot is fairly straightforward. Quintus Dias (the brilliant Michael Fassbender) is the lone survivor of a raid from the savage Picts, based in northern Britain. Dias marches with the ninth legion, led by General Virilus (Dominic West) to eliminate the Picts. When the legion is ambushed and Virilus is taken captive, it's up to Dias and a small band of soldiers to rescue Virilus, defeat the Picts and return to the Roman frontier.
The spectacular violence is the highlight of the film. This is not for the squeamish, as blood flows from the opening battle and doesn't stop until the end: there's decapitated limbs, beheadings and lots of throat slitting. While there's plenty of violence, it never ventures into "gore porn" territory. The fight scenes are edited so quickly that sometimes it's hard to pick up who's killing who in the mess of bodies. As a viewer, it's best to just sit back and watch the carnage, which certainly earns its MA rating (with a bit of swearing thrown in).
Probably the most brutal is Pict warrior Etain (Olga Kurylenko), who has an almost animalistic ability to track enemies. While â€“ due to her character being mute - Kurylenko has no dialogue, she makes up for it by matching it blow-for-blow with the male characters. Like most films of this nature, there is a romantic sub-plot, between Dias and Arian(Imogen Poots), a Pict witch who has been doomed to a life of solitude and briefly houses Dias and his soldiers. Fortunately, the romantic sub-plot is only really hinted at and isn't there just for the sake of it.
Though the mise-en-scene is quite murky, this adds to the film's atmosphere and helps to draw you into the story, as well as providing a stark contrast to all the blood. The score is quite unobtrusive - the only times you really notice it is in the quieter scenes, which helps establish the relationship between Dias and his soldiers, often punctuated with dark humour.
If you like films with plenty of violence, then sit back, and enjoy the ride of 'Centurion'.