Heroic Roman soldier Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) finds himself lost behind Pictish enemy lines in the north of Britain and in charge of a handful of survivors of the legendary Ninth Legion.
The Legion was slaughtered after being led into a trap by traitorous, mute scout Etain (Olga Kurylenko of Quantum Of Solace).In trying to rescue their kidnapped General (Dominic West), the stragglers accidentally kill the son of Pict warlord Gorlacon (Ulrich Thomsen) who sends Etain and Gorlacon's men on a blood feud to hunt down and kill the Romans.
Written and directed by Neil Marshall (who also gave us such classics as Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and Doomsday) Centurion is a testosterone-fuelled Boys Own adventure, a brutal game of cat-and-mouse through the snowy wilderness as the escapees (who count Doctor Who veterans Noel Clarke and David Morrissey among their number) are slowly worn down and forced to make a final stand.
Bloody, gruesome and foul-mouthed, there are definite traces of Spartacus: Blood And Sand here - although bereft of the raunchiness - but the story lacks the intricacies and deviousness of that television show.
As a crowd-pleasing 90-minute diversion, Centurion is good stuff, with its plot twists and turns towards the end adding a degree of mischievousness to the otherwise straight-forward action-adventure.
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