A flawed yet underrated gem

Rating: 8/10 (18 September 2012)

Since I am such a lover of history, centurion was a must for me, especially since it was a Neil Marshall movie - one of my favourite directors. When I first watched Gladiator, I hoped for some sort of similar epic centred around the Eagle of the Ninth storyline, but it seems like this film has been the answer to my prayers.
The story revolves around the legend of the ninth legion. A roman legion marches north of England into what was ancient Scotland (back then called pictland), and they disappeared. A book called Eagle of the Ninth was written about it in the 1950s involving a son of a legionnaire going north to recover the eagle. There was a film made of it in 2011 called 'The Eagle' though I haven't seen it quite yet.
This film shows the attack on the legion after advancing into pictland where a handful of men survive and are now trying to escape a hunting group of picts led by the mute Etain (Olga Kurylenko) whose entire existence since her brutalisation and her parents' slaughter at the hands of the Romans, is devoted to taking the lives of Roman soldiers.
The cast is top-notch. Michael Fassbender is excellent as the lead role and he puts his all into it. The rest of the cast of survivors are excellent as well, but apart from Riz Ahmed's Arabic cook and Noel Clarke's Greek runner, all seem to be too similar to each other. The picts are excellent as well, but easier to distinguish, especially Dave Legeno and Axelle Carolyn. Olga Kurylenko seems at first a bit too skinny looking to be a really strong Pict warrior, but her mute character and her brutal nature soon overcomes this. She is a really powerful presence on screen, but as well as being intimidating, she also comes across as quite a tragic figure, and her skinny frame also portrays a sense of frailty to her character that comes across very well. She clearly leads an almost heartbreakingly sad existence living only for vengeance.
There are a couple of flaws in this film. The Romans carry spears rather than pilums (though that can apparently be explained away by compromise), the weird romantic subplot that appears during the course of the plot seems strangely tacked on and out of place. Also, what struck me as strangest was that after Etain's brutalisation she headed north to Gorlacon's tribe, presumably at such a young age and in the state she'd have been in she'd not have been able to travel too far so she probably came from the northeast of Albion, but how was she able to tell them such a detailed story of her brutality if she was mute? Having said all that, the camera work is excellent. Though the Romans are invaders and one would naturally side with the picts, their own brutality comes through and you really sympathise with the tired, cold, hungry and scared survivors as this unstoppable Pict warrior and her followers, and the extent that even the landscape is a threat to them.
If you haven't seen Centurion yet, see it, but recognise that it is not a perfect movie, though a damned fine one at that