I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie is pure fantasy, with very little connection to history. Yes, there was a Ninth Legion that was stationed in Britain. It disappeared from Roman records, but there is no evidence that it suffered the fate depicted in this move. There is no evidence that the makers of this movie cared about history at all.The equipment was wrong. The Roman legionary on the march carried his kit suspended by a forked wooden pole over the shoulder, not a spear. He did carry one or two pilum, throwing javelins made of soft metal and a wooden haft, so that when thrown it would deform and not be thrown back by the enemy. The tactics were wrong. The legionary fought with shield and gladius, a short sword used for stabbing, not slashing. What made the legions so effective was that the soldiers fought in close order, highly disciplined. The barbarians fought as individuals, slashing and flailing, not legionaries... except in this movie.The premise of the plot is a total flight of fancy. It is chock full of predictable elements seen in countless movies. I highly recommend that you instead watch "Northwest Passage" (1940) for a gripping drama of a military expedition that faces disaster. Then watch "Centurion".I give the movie a 2 instead of only a 1 because at least technically it is well made.

I knew this film was set during a time period full of men in armour with swords, I think that's about it really, I was up for giving it a go, directed by Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent). Basically in Roman Britain in the year AD 117, five years before the construction of Hadrian's Wall, Roman centurion Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) is the son of a legendary gladiator, and the sole survivor of a Pictish raid on a Roman frontier fort. Gnaeus Julius Agricola (Raiders of the Lost Ark's Paul Freeman), the Roman governor of Britannia, dispatches the Ninth Legion, legendary army of General Titus Flavius Virilus (Dominic West), to eradicate the Pictish threat and destroy their leader Gorlacon (Festen's Ulrich Thomsen), the legion marches north, they encounter and rescue Dias. The legion are ambushed on unfamiliar ground, Virilus is taken captive, Quintus and his small platoon face a desperate struggle to stay alive behind enemy lines, rescue the general and reach the safety of the Roman frontier. They are forced to endure harsh terrain and evade their remorseless Pict pursuers led by revenge- hungry Pict warrior Etain (Quantum of Solace's Olga Kurylenko), one by one the soldiers fall victim to the savagery of their enemy. In the end, to avoid criticism and other consequences, all records of the Ninth Legion are destroyed, so to this day nobody knows the full truth of what happened to them when they disappeared. Also starring Noel Clarke as Macros, Game of Thrones' Liam Cunningham as Brick, David Morrissey as Bothos, Four Lions' Rizwan Ahmed as Tarak, Imogen Poots as Arianne, JJ Feild as Thax, Dave Legeno as Vortix, Lee Ross as Septus, Ryan Atkinson as Gorlacon's Son and The Living Daylights' Andreas Wisniewski as Commander Gratus. I agree with critics that not a lot of effort went into making a really engrossing story and the characters are not that developed, so there is a slight lack of suspense and emotional involvement, but to be honest, I was paying much more attention to the fight and chase sequences, full of many violent and blood soaked deaths, overall it's an alright historical action thriller. Okay!

I feel lit necessary to state that I am writing this review because I watched this movie in a "Rome and Greece in Film and Pop Culture" class; however, I could not disagree more with the amateurish analysis the course provided. The teacher has a strong affinity for Ridley Scott's Gladiator, and as this film was screened following Gladiator we spent the first rounds of discussion comparing the two. As the class knew the teacher's love for "Gladiator" the discussion quickly became a hate fest on "Centurion" and a blind worshiping of "Gladiator." First I would like to officially clarify that "Gladiator" is the more entertaining and in many respects the superior movie; however for the purposes of the class we are to analyze, not only the cinematic aspects of the movie, but what the movie is indirectly saying about the viewing audience (in our case the USA). Viewing the movies from this angle I find it utterly indefensible to claim that Gladiator is anything more than a good movie in a purely entertaining sense. The historical inaccuracies from dress to plot viability of Gladiator leave it useless in the ways of historical analysis; furthermore, "Centurion" as unrealistic as it may be, cannot be analyzed in the same light as there is a legitimate mystery concerning the fate of the 9th legion. Where "Centurion" far exceeds "Gladiator" is in what we the audience can take away from it. While "Gladiator"(2000) has an interesting plot and a logical catharsis "Centurion"(2010) has a great deal to say about not only the nature of man, but also the political position that the United States found itself in. As is often the case Roman movies are a prism through which we analyze the values of our own empire. It is hard to watch "Centurion" and not pick up on the commentary it lays out on the war on terror that the US finds itself engaged in. The movie hits on the different warfare: not a war of expansion or conquest, but a war of suppression and occupation. By the end of the movie the differences between Roman and Picts (Proto-Scotts?) have been reduced to nothing. Some Romans are depicted as irreparably shitty(Thax) while even the most bloodthirsty Picts have their motivations explained and understood. The final scene with Bothos being mistakenly shot, Fassbender being betrayed redundantly and finally returning to the only attractive witch drives home the message that "everyone is a person regardless of homeland or creed, and all we can do is behave, at all times, in an honorable and prudent fashion." Having a deceptively thoughtful movie be so misrepresented by classmates, whom literally in the same breath denounce Quentin Tarantino, necessitated a response though I would have been overruled in such a den of mediocrity.

Neill Marshall's Centurion is a brutal, streamlined, balls to the wall story of several lost members of a Roman legion trying to survive the elements, ruthless enemy forces, and each other. It's not so much a sweeping, epic piece like 300, Troy or ones like that, but a more intimate, individualistic take on it. It's like the Bourne Identity of the sword flicks, all tooth and nail survival action as opposed to large scale battle sequences. Michael Fassbender plays , a centurion whose legion is decimated by a rogue group of fierce picts, led by Etienne (Olga Kurylenko in full beast mode). Their commander (Dominic West) can't hold the stragglers together, and soon a group of five or six of them are forced to hurdle through the barren, snowy terrain in hopes of escape from their relentless, pelt wearing pursuers. West is killer good in the few scenes he has, peppering his mannerisms and dialogue with a belligerent glint in his eye. Fassbender makes a stalwart protagonist. The gorgeous Imogen Pootds, a relative newcomer when this was released, is radiant as a forest dwelling loner who takes the gaggle of survivors in and cares for them. Liam Cunningham underplays his ageing soldier role beautifully. The camera work is also to be noted, capturing some stunning fight scenes set atop a snow dusted plateau, and later an abandoned keep. It's a fairly underrated slice of bloody genre fun, with Marshall being no stranger to this sort of breathless escapism, and having helmed the pilot of Game Of Thrones, adding all the right touches to make it well worth our while.