Centurion

Rating: 4/10 (7 July 2016)

I knew this film was set during a time period full of men in armour with swords, I think that's about it really, I was up for giving it a go, directed by Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent). Basically in Roman Britain in the year AD 117, five years before the construction of Hadrian's Wall, Roman centurion Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) is the son of a legendary gladiator, and the sole survivor of a Pictish raid on a Roman frontier fort. Gnaeus Julius Agricola (Raiders of the Lost Ark's Paul Freeman), the Roman governor of Britannia, dispatches the Ninth Legion, legendary army of General Titus Flavius Virilus (Dominic West), to eradicate the Pictish threat and destroy their leader Gorlacon (Festen's Ulrich Thomsen), the legion marches north, they encounter and rescue Dias. The legion are ambushed on unfamiliar ground, Virilus is taken captive, Quintus and his small platoon face a desperate struggle to stay alive behind enemy lines, rescue the general and reach the safety of the Roman frontier. They are forced to endure harsh terrain and evade their remorseless Pict pursuers led by revenge- hungry Pict warrior Etain (Quantum of Solace's Olga Kurylenko), one by one the soldiers fall victim to the savagery of their enemy. In the end, to avoid criticism and other consequences, all records of the Ninth Legion are destroyed, so to this day nobody knows the full truth of what happened to them when they disappeared. Also starring Noel Clarke as Macros, Game of Thrones' Liam Cunningham as Brick, David Morrissey as Bothos, Four Lions' Rizwan Ahmed as Tarak, Imogen Poots as Arianne, JJ Feild as Thax, Dave Legeno as Vortix, Lee Ross as Septus, Ryan Atkinson as Gorlacon's Son and The Living Daylights' Andreas Wisniewski as Commander Gratus. I agree with critics that not a lot of effort went into making a really engrossing story and the characters are not that developed, so there is a slight lack of suspense and emotional involvement, but to be honest, I was paying much more attention to the fight and chase sequences, full of many violent and blood soaked deaths, overall it's an alright historical action thriller. Okay!