Michael Fassbender is disillusioned with his preconceived notions of honor to recognize the humanity in us all.

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2016)

I feel lit necessary to state that I am writing this review because I watched this movie in a "Rome and Greece in Film and Pop Culture" class; however, I could not disagree more with the amateurish analysis the course provided. The teacher has a strong affinity for Ridley Scott's Gladiator, and as this film was screened following Gladiator we spent the first rounds of discussion comparing the two. As the class knew the teacher's love for "Gladiator" the discussion quickly became a hate fest on "Centurion" and a blind worshiping of "Gladiator." First I would like to officially clarify that "Gladiator" is the more entertaining and in many respects the superior movie; however for the purposes of the class we are to analyze, not only the cinematic aspects of the movie, but what the movie is indirectly saying about the viewing audience (in our case the USA). Viewing the movies from this angle I find it utterly indefensible to claim that Gladiator is anything more than a good movie in a purely entertaining sense. The historical inaccuracies from dress to plot viability of Gladiator leave it useless in the ways of historical analysis; furthermore, "Centurion" as unrealistic as it may be, cannot be analyzed in the same light as there is a legitimate mystery concerning the fate of the 9th legion. Where "Centurion" far exceeds "Gladiator" is in what we the audience can take away from it. While "Gladiator"(2000) has an interesting plot and a logical catharsis "Centurion"(2010) has a great deal to say about not only the nature of man, but also the political position that the United States found itself in. As is often the case Roman movies are a prism through which we analyze the values of our own empire. It is hard to watch "Centurion" and not pick up on the commentary it lays out on the war on terror that the US finds itself engaged in. The movie hits on the different warfare: not a war of expansion or conquest, but a war of suppression and occupation. By the end of the movie the differences between Roman and Picts (Proto-Scotts?) have been reduced to nothing. Some Romans are depicted as irreparably shitty(Thax) while even the most bloodthirsty Picts have their motivations explained and understood. The final scene with Bothos being mistakenly shot, Fassbender being betrayed redundantly and finally returning to the only attractive witch drives home the message that "everyone is a person regardless of homeland or creed, and all we can do is behave, at all times, in an honorable and prudent fashion." Having a deceptively thoughtful movie be so misrepresented by classmates, whom literally in the same breath denounce Quentin Tarantino, necessitated a response though I would have been overruled in such a den of mediocrity.