If You Like Graphic, Bloody Violence This Movie Is For You

Rating: 2/10 (8 September 2018)

An over-extended Empire. Its troops stationed on the far frontier, not really understanding why they're there in a place they don't understand, don't care about and just want to get out of so that they can return home. An enemy that's simply relentless and will not give up. A politician who just wants to make a name for himself so that he can get back into the halls of power and isn't above covering up uncomfortable truths. It could be about the beginning of the end for any number of Empires throughout history - including the current American Empire. In that sense, I see this story as a sort of parable; a reflection of today's world put into a very different context. To that extent, it has some - some very little, mind you - point to it.
The context of the movie is actually the Roman Empire, and Roman troops stationed and fighting on the extreme northern frontier of the Empire, in Britannia. It's before the construction of Hadrian's Wall, and the Ninth Legion is in Pict territory (basically, Scotland) and is finding itself unable to subdue the pesky Picts. The movie is based on a legend about the Ninth Legion, which did in fact disappear from Roman history sometimes in the 2nd century (and many historians do believe it perished in Britannia.) It's a very violent, very bloody and very graphic movie. If you like those things you'll love this. The story is pretty bare bones and unimaginative really. After a fierce (violent, bloody and graphic) battle against the local Picts, what's left of the Ninth Legion (and it ain't much) has to try to find its way back to the safety of the Roman lines, all the while being hunted down by the Picts. After all that the movie chose to end on what I found to be an awkward romantic note that just didn't fit with the whole tenor of the story.
Michael Fassbender starred in this as the commander of the ragged troops trying to find their way home. He was decent enough, but the whole tenor of the movie was its graphic bloodiness with a handful of "gross-out" scenes - such as the survivors killing a deer and drinking its blood and eating half digested moss from its stomach. I'd have to give some marks to Olga Kurylenko for her silent performance as Etain - the Pict scout who's out for revenge because years before the Romans killed her father, raped and killed her mother and raped her and cut her tongue out. Her "Etain" was not someone I'd want to cross!
But you'd really have to like blood and gore with only a very limited storyline to make this worth watching. (2/10)