Centurion (2010) - a Film Review

Do you recognise this? You are going to watch a movie because your favorite actor or actress is in it, it's a horrible movie, but you wait patiently until she (in my case an actress) finally pops up after one and a half hour, she’s in just one scene and has only 7 lines?

In short, Centurion is about a small group of Roman soldiers who flee for the Picts.

Dominic West

The most gruesome fights are interspersed with magnificent shots in bird's-eye view of the Romans fleeing in the snowy landscape. Because these shots are filmed with a drone, they remind me of a nature documentary. A greater contrast can not exist because the massacre is so violent and so graphically depicted. Swords go through heads like a knife through butter and spears go through torsos as a cocktail pick through a slice of liverwurst. Blood and chopped off limbs fly around. It’s just nauseating.

Olga Kurylenko

This is not the only problem with this movie. Because of this brutal massacre I have no sympathy for the fleeing Romans. I think constantly; let Etain, a feisty Pict who wants revenge, waste no time to kill them off. An attempt is made to make the men seem more sympathetic by letting them tell how they got into the army, but it does not impress me. The Romans are the cruel invaders and the Picts are being wronged.

Not that I want to say that the Picts were such sweethearts. Although my most sympathy goes to Etain, she is as violent and ruthless as the Romans. So this 10% sympathy I feel for her does not contribute to a good movie.

Michael Fassbender

Another problem is that the dialogues are so pompously and the actors who say them are behaving like they’re in a Shakespeare play. Although it will get less after a while it’s still irritating. It is probably an attempt to raise the movie to a higher level. But they did not succeed.

The only thing that left me a positive impression is the music of Ilan Eshkeri. In any case there is no violence glorifying music that goes with the horrific battle scenes. His music reminds me a bit of Hans Zimmer's in Gladiator.

Rachael Stirling

No this is not a movie I would recommend and I find the 6.4 that gets on the IMDb still on the high side. Even the music and the 7 lines of Rachael Stirling can not save this movie.

Centurion (2010) Trailer

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