Centurion: Film Review
There are no oily-chest, scantily clad fellows in Neil Marshall’s modern day Roman epic, Centurion. For fans of Gerard ‘look at my 57-pack’ Butler, this may prove a disappointment.
The British director, famed for tightly constructed, low-budget horror movies, tones down the glamour of films such as 300 and Gladiator in favour of his trademark, gritty approach.
Centurion delivers exactly what you’d expect from a Marshall movie: crunching battles, gallons of blood and frenetic action. For all its promise though, Centurion is a pretty tame affair.
Centurion: Breaking Heads, Not New Ground
Centurion is ostensibly a chase movie which centres on a band of chard Roman soldiers spearheaded by the ambidextrous talent of Michael Fassbender.
And the film follows a tight pattern: a mischievous scallywag slits the throats of credulous characters every other minute. Gallons of blood gush forth with the force of a broken water main.
At first, this is shocking, perhaps even a little exciting. It doesn’t take long till you’ve become desensitised to the violence, though. If you rub mustard on your face for long enough, I suppose it might start to get annoying.
Centurion: A Sword and Sandals Movie for the 21st Century
Centurion is a tightly made film which carries the idiosyncratic stamp we’ve come to expect from Marshall.
It is a decent movie.
Be that as it may, it’s my least favourite in his back-catalogue. Centurion’s ceaseless carnage chomps up the charm and wit of Doomsday, The Descent and Dog Soldiers.
That’s not to say Centurion is without humour. The band of burley Roman conquerors sound like a group of lads down the local on a Saturday night and there are some one-liners, so clunky, that they must have been intentional.
Centurion is average fare but still packs a harder punch than the majority of historical action films to emerge from Hollywood.
Rating: 
Ross Wheatley
3:14 pm, August 20, 2010
Like the review, Matt. But one thing i must disagree with is the star rating for this piece – it shouldn’t take more than 1/5, God-awful film in my view.
Jeff
5:16 pm, August 20, 2010
I disagree with you there Ross, its not an awful film the storyline was good and it was a fun film to watch, not as good as 300 or gladiator like Matt said, but still not far off being a class roman action film