#Centurion film movie

The rest of the ensemble are a mixed bunch. West, too, is impressive much like his character in The Wire, he has fun as the reckless, hard-drinking but respected General, frequently indulging in a bit of anachronistically modern swearing, Deadwood-style. Fassbender imbues his Centurion Quintus with a war veteran weariness and an intense seriousness in his responsibility as leader. Crucially, both have the acting chops to match, and they ably give their respective characters a much-needed depth. Michael Fassbender, as the leader of the Roman survivors, and Dominic West, as the legion's General, have just the right hulking, powerful physicality to convince you they were warriors in an ancient civilisation. Here, though, it seems a little less ludicrous and homogeneous as 300's assortment of male models. Marshall's approach has more in common with Zack Snyder's '300' - both gleefully eschew the history books, both are unflinching in their depictions of violence and gore, and both feature impossibly chiselled men as their warrior heroes. Less 'swords and sandals', more 'mud and boots'. His is a cold, gritty, uncaring vision of Roman Britain, shot almost for real in the harsh Cairngorms winter, a minimum of computer graphics, many of the stunts being performed by the actors themselves. It's an obvious influence, but Marshall's film has none of the gloss or scale of Scott's, nor the rich, impressive CGI realisation of ancient Rome.

#Centurion film movie

It's difficult not to address the spectre of 'Gladiator' when discussing a Roman-set movie Ridley Scott's 1999 epic is widely credited as reviving the long dormant swords-and-sandals genre, making history (or at least cinema's bastardised version of it) cool again. The result is a boisterous, tightly paced chase movie, like those popular in the seventies, where story takes something of a back seat to brutal, uncompromising action. Out of this ambush comes six intrepid survivors, who must trek across the Caledonian mountains to escape the ruthless pursuit of the indigenous warriors.

Marshall has clearly enjoyed the creative freedom afforded to him from fabricating a tale which has very little historical record, detailing how the best organised army in all the world could have just disappeared: by being ambushed and annihilated at the hands of the merciless Picts, the dominant Scottish tribe of the time. As Marshall has acknowledged, historians have since found evidence to the contrary, but for the purposes of this film, it's far more entertaining to 'print the legend'. In his latest film, British director Neil Marshall has avoided this recurring problem by making the whole damn thing up! Well, not exactly 'Centurion' is based on the myth of the 9th Legion, a unit of the Roman army which - so the legend goes - marched into tribal Scotland to conquer the last untapped stronghold of Roman Britian.and were never heard of again. In Centurion it's more like 200 who are attacked by the Picts.If historical movies have one thing in common, itВЂВ™s that theyВЂВ™re always historically inaccurate, often wildly so. The Ninth Legion would have comprised about 4,000 men. There are some things Gladiator had that Centurion doesn't: a great screenplay, original vision, and a massive budget. Of course, there are quite a lot of fireballs in Gladiator too, during the opening battle in Germania. The centurions in Centurion get giant rolling fireballs, a weapon probably unknown to second-century Caledones. Like many things in this movie, this appears to be a homage to Gladiator, in which Maximus (Russell Crowe) says: 'Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together.' The gladiators in Gladiator got the warriors of Scipio Africanus. 'Whatever comes out of that mist, lads, you will hold the line,' says Virilus. The soldiers realise they're being followed, and gather into a defensive formation.

It's supposed to be mist, but it looks more like the industrial revolution has started just around the corner.

Somebody has been going crazy with a second-century smoke machine. The legion heads north, deep into a Caledonian forest. Great balls of fireballs вЂ¦ looking familiar yet?