If a movie can be bleak yet rousing, “Centurion” fills the bill: This is “Gladiator” for the recession era, stripped-down and disillusioned.
“Centurion” comes from writer-director Neil Marshall, who made such an effective freak-out in “The Descent.” Here Marshall casts back to the year CXVII, which would be A.D. 117 for you non-Romans.
The Romans have invaded Britain and are tussling it out with the natives, the far less civilized Picts — although with this much blood spurting and this many body parts flying, the word “civilized” must be used carefully.
The movie begins with a Roman centurion, one Quintin Dias (played by Michael Fassbender), running half-naked across a bitter, snowy landscape in the vicinity of Scotland. Flashbacks will tell us how he got there, but the image sets the tone for the harsh spectacle to follow.
Quintin and his fighting legion are slogging across the north of Britain and not doing too well against the Picts. In particular, a Pict female tracker (Olga Kurylenko) has a tendency to, you know, follow her enemy until she has destroyed him utterly. Then she paints her face blue and gets even more determined, which can’t be good.
The film is on a small scale compared to something like “Gladiator,” and it has more of a pulp quality: The sentiments are broader, the violence is grislier.
Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds”) seems incapable of less than total commitment to a role, and he’s mighty brawny here. His fellow manly men include Dominic West (who got experience in this sort of thing in “300”), Liam Cunningham and David Morrissey.
Axelle Carolyn provides shelter from the storm, in the form of an outcast woman who gives Quintin a break from the wars.
“Centurion” puts a twist on the formula: Although we follow Quintin’s story and root for his survival, we also realize he represents the invader, someone who’s gone up against the wrong enemy in the wrong place. That tension gives the movie an extra bit of pessimism, and keeps it from being a simple bucket of blood.
If it went just a hair off course, “Centurion” would stumble into Monty Python territory. Maybe it does, once or twice. But for the most part, this is a bloody success.
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