Centurion (2010)

Centurion is a 2010 British historical action-war film written and directed by Neil Marshall, loosely based on the disappearance of the Roman Empire’s Ninth Legion in Caledonia in the early second century CE. The film stars Michael Fassbender, Dominic West and Olga Kurylenko.

Plot.

The Roman Empire has been unable to fully conquer Britain, reaching a harsh stalemate in the North. The Picts engage in guerrilla warfare against the Romans along the Glenblocker forts and the Gask Ridge at the southern border of the Scottish Highlands. At the Roman outpost of Pinnata Castra, Pict warriors led by Vortix and Aeron kill the entire garrison, taking only the second-in-command, Centurion Quintus Dias, because he can speak the Pictish language. Brought before Pict king Gorlacon, who has united the northern tribes, Dias is brutally interrogated, but escapes on foot.

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A messenger from the fort reaches Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman governor of Britannia, who hopes to obtain favour with the Roman Senate and transfer back to the comforts of Rome. He dispatches the Ninth Legion under General Titus Flavius Virilus to eradicate the Pict threat, providing him with a Celtic Brigantian scout, Etain. Marching north, the legion rescues Dias from his pursuers. Etain leads them into an ambush where, surprised by flaming pitch-wood ‘boulders’, they are massacred and the wounded Virilus is captured. The few survivors – Dias, the legionaries Bothos, Thax, Brick,

Macros and Leonidas, and the cook Tarak – set out to rescue Virilus, finding him at Gorlacon’s village. Sneaking in at nightfall, they are unable to break his chains, and he orders them to return to Roman territory without him. In Gorlacon’s hut, Thax suffocates the king’s young son to prevent him giving them away. The next morning, Gorlacon burns his son’s body on a funeral pyre and forces Virilus to fight Etain, who as a child witnessed her parents raped and slaughtered by the Romans; she kills him with a spear through the heart. Gorlacon sends her after the legionaries at the head of a group of mounted warriors, including Vortix and Aeron, to avenge his son’s death.

Production.

Centurion was written originally by director Neil Marshall under the working title Ninth Legion. The Ninth Legion, according to one legend, marched into Scotland from York with over 3,000 men and disappeared. In recent years, historians have disputed the fate of the legion; some believe they were disbanded, while others believe they were massacred in Germania or in the East fighting the Persians during the early years of the second century. Marshall said of his take of the story, “It’s not meant to be historically perfect. I’m picking up on a legend and exploring it… it’s an action thriller.” The tide of academic opinion seems to be returning to the view that the Legion was probably wiped out in Britain. In a recent book, Dr Miles Russell of Bournemouth University observes that there is strong evidence for a catastrophic British war resulting in the annihilation of the legion early in the reign of Hadrian.

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Reception.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 61% based on 109 reviews, and an average rating of 5.5/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “It’s a bloody geyser of Neil Marshall’s typically stylish B-movie action, but Centurion is too focused on hacking and slashing to deliver original dialogue or interesting characters.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.

Centurion (2010) Biography, Plot, Production, Reception, Trailer