Review of Centurion (2010) by Henrik S — 12 Feb 2011

Neil Marshall's ambitious movie is heavily flawed and unpolished. The ambition of the project is its greatest downfall, instead of catering the movie towards the budget (as in Dog Soldiers), Marshall stretches whatever he has over the slim back of the budget which results in silly costumes, make-up and special effects. Okay, this does not make a movie bad necessarily, but it does should the movie take itself so bloody seriously like this one does. Apart from Liam Cunningham and Fassbender, whose grim face is actually not that bad to behold, the cast is awful, which might be owned to the poor script and dull characters, who knows. From the first few minutes, any notion of historical accuracy went overboard and the movie has so many errors, inaccuracies and logical inconsistencies, it is like watching a play by the 5th grade, without having to clap because the Roman is your neighbour's kid. The story is pretty much nonexistent, a simple hit and run movie, which might fit the theme, but prevents from the movie to become more than a simple action romp though Norther Britain at any point. Furthermore, I loathe a movie which depicts the Romans as victims of any sort, they were the invaders and did it out of pure imperial greed, they never were heroes. A sluggish and pointless film, stay away from it. I give it 1 1/2 because of the subject matter which had so much potential and I am always interested in anything related to British History but this one is a stinker.

HX.