My name is Gaius Nefarius Purpus and this is not the beginning or the end of my review...

Rating: 10/10 (4 September 2010)

Centurion is about the Ninth Legion which may or may not have disappeared during the Roman occupation of Brittania. There has been some interest in the Ninth recently with the Arthurian kids film The Last Legion and the forthcoming Eagle of the Ninth project.
The film is vintage Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent, Doomsday etc.) in that it combines extreme gore with good dialogue and a high body count. The acting is universally excellent the special effects are good and the story exciting (if not at all complex).
Spoiler
It's 117 AD, and bang on time. Naughty Picts, lead by their king Gorlacon, are waging an effective guerrilla war against the occupying Roman forces. Michael Fassbender (or, as I shall hereforth call him, "The Fass") stars as Roman centurion, Quintus Dias who is captured by Gorlacon's forces when his outpost is overrun and his comrades slaughtered.
Meanwhile, Arigcola, governor of Brittania, dispatches the Ninth Legion under their General (Dominic West) on a mission to track down Gorlacon and destroy him. To assist he lends them his best underwear model... sorry, I mean his best tracker, a mute Pict called Etain (Olga Kurilenko). Along the way they happen across Quintus, who has escaped his pursuers and co-opt him into guiding them to the Pictish stronghold.
Soon after the Legion is ambushed and destroyed by Gorlacon's troops. Quintus and a small band of Romans survive and set off to save the captured general.
The rest of the film involves Quintus' small band of soldiers attempt to make it back to friendly territory whilst being relentlessly pursued by an angry Russian underwear model with a fur fetish.
End Spoiler
Neil Marshall is at his very best in stories about soldiers and in Centurion he is back on territory familiar from Dog Soldiers (2002). Barring the supernatural element there is some similarity in the tone of both films and I feel certain that if you enjoyed one you will enjoy the other. Both films involve a small unit of professional soldiers in a situation that they cannot control and seem unlikely to survive.
I can offer Centurion no greater praise than to say that it is almost as good as Dog Soldiers.