Cast: Michael Fassbender, Dominc West, Olgy Kurylenko

Director: Neil Marshall

Screenwriter: Neil Marshall

With sweeping orchestral music ushering in the credits of Centurion, the latest offering in a resurgence in the swords and sandals genre, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re in for a Gladiator-esque tale of loyalty, honour  and triumphant alpha male heroics. It is not long though before it becomes quite clear that Neil Marshall’s latest is a far cry from the Crowe-Scott Oscar-winning tag team; less an operatic awards contender and more a B-movie revenge tale, it’s fun and furious, if a little below par for one of this country’s most reliable genre filmmakers.

Marshall made his name with the horror films Dog Soldiers and The Descent, the former seeing a group of squaddies face off against werewolves in the Scottish Highlands, the latter pitching a gang of cave-diving gals against underground beasties. Both were, comparatively, low budget movies which succeeded on the strength of their dialogue and characterisation. A two-from-two success rate saw Marshall then embark on his biggest project to date with film number three, the ambitious, post-apocalyptic sci-fi-er Doomsday, yet critical reception was lukewarm and box office results poorer than anticipated, both of which were attributed to the film’s lack of narrative focus and one-note characters. Centurion, though, sees Marshall back to painting on the smaller canvass he began with, yet it is not quite the triumphant return to his roots he may have been hoping for. While the budget may be more in keeping with his earlier output, the clunking dialogue, poorly drawn characters and meandering plot have, sadly, more in common with his bigger budget misfire.

On the farthest regions of the Roman Empire in Northern Britain, the “arsehole of the Empire,” as Michael Fassbender’s Quintus Dias describes it, the Ninth Legion is failing in its battles with the Picts, the native clans whose barbaric yet extremely effective guerilla tactics have claimed many a Roman life. After an ambush in which the Picts massacre the Legion, the remaining ragtag band of survivors, led by Fassbender’s Quintus Dias find themselves alone, trapped behind enemy lines and with a fearsome fight on their hands to rescue their captured commander Titus Flavius Virilis (West) and get back south to safety, with Pict tracker Etain (Quantum of Solace’s Olga Kurylenko) leading the barbarians on their trail.

The fight for survival is a bloody affair, and Marshall’s depiction of second century combat is limb-chopping, brutal, and unflinching. It is shot through though with a healthy dose of humour too, the Roman warriors trading jokes and jibes, yet poor characterisation, of both the Picts and the Roman survivors, leaves the film cold and disappointingly unengaging. The cast, particularly Dominic West and Dog Soldiers alumni Liam Cunningham, do their best, but have little to work with and an unnecessary romance, which feels shoehorned in to the plot, fails to enliven the proceedings with any heart or emotion. Marshall’s B-movie love is present but, ultimately, Centurion is that and nothing more. Neither serious enough to be a convincing thriller nor frivolous enough to be an enjoyable romp, it’s a claret-spilling action film, but with no characters to root for it is diverting but never especially gripping.

By Alasdair Morton

Centurion is out now courtesy of Pathe.