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Centurion (2010)

tomatometer

59

Average Rating: 5.5/10
Reviews Counted: 102
Fresh: 60 | Rotten: 42

It's a bloody geyser of Neil Marshall's typically stylish B-movie action, but Centurion is too focused on hacking and slashing to deliver original dialogue or interesting characters.

60

Average Rating: 5.8/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 8

It's a bloody geyser of Neil Marshall's typically stylish B-movie action, but Centurion is too focused on hacking and slashing to deliver original dialogue or interesting characters.

audience

42

liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 43,479

My Rating

Movie Info

CENTURION is set during the war between Roman soldiers and Pict tribesmen during the 2nd century Roman conquest of Britain. Michael Fassbender stars as Quintus Dias, Roman centurion and son of a legendary gladiator who leads a group of soldiers on a raid of a Pict camp to rescue a captured general (Dominic West). The son of the Pict leader is murdered during the raid, and the Romans find themselves hunted by a seemingly unstoppable group of the Pict's most vicious and skilled warriors, led by a

R, 1 hr. 37 min.

Drama, Action & Adventure, Mystery & Suspense

Neil Marshall

Nov 2, 2010

$0.1M

Magnolia Pictures

Cast

All Critics (102) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (61) | Rotten (42) | DVD (5)

Auteur cinema of a very narrow stripe, this personalizes a familiar genre to advance a singularly pessimistic view of humanity.

January 3, 2011 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
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Centurion wraps itself in talk of duty and honor, but really it's just another cinematic death-trip.

September 3, 2010 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
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Marshall is big on desaturated imagery, which imparts to the film's copious amounts of hemoglobin the look of squid ink.

September 2, 2010 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | Comment
Christian Science Monitor
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The film has a resigned bitterness, hard to shake off, that feels right for the experience of tough guys, from whatever period of history, who find themselves at the tattered edge of what they take to be civilization.

August 30, 2010 Full Review Source: New Yorker | Comment
New Yorker
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Marshall shows off the breathtaking landscape, but with interiors, he populates the ale houses and encampments with cliches.

August 27, 2010 Full Review Source: New York Daily News | Comment
New York Daily News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Bloody well done.

August 27, 2010 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Michael Fassbender can carry a movie.

April 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Movies.com | Comment
Movies.com

With a raucous, gruesome tone, this Roman-era British action movie takes us back in time in such a vivid way that we often feel a bit queasy while watching. If the story were stronger, we'd be glued to the screen.

March 10, 2011 Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | Comment
Shadows on the Wall

The sight of a technologically superior occupying force coming a cropper in hostile foreign territory inescapably brings modern Afghanistan to mind.

March 10, 2011 Full Review Source: Movie Talk | Comment

Director Neil Marshall thrills yet again setting forth his own vision of the gladiator epic that pays tribute to the classic tropes of the sub-genre, but is concurrently a revenge film and journey in to darkness...

December 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | Comment
Cinema Crazed

Centurion is the kind of B movie you watch on a Saturday night, your entire reaction encapsulated in one critically dodgy but apropos sentiment: "It kicks ass."

November 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

Features a commitment to craft that helps overcome issues of storytelling by providing a visceral, violent experience designed to get you in your gut and bones more than in your heart or head.

September 17, 2010 Full Review Source: Movie Retriever | Comment
Movie Retriever

It's a cat and mouse game where we are stuck rooting for the cat even though it killed and raped thousands of mice.

September 12, 2010 Full Review Source: The Scorecard Review | Comments (2)
The Scorecard Review

If I believed in the concept of "guilty pleasures," I'd classify Centurion as one, but I think I maybe just kind of enjoyed it.

September 10, 2010 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian

A pre-chainsaw extravaganza where the Romans talk like James Bond and the Picts have better military backgrounds than the American generals who invaded Afghanistan.

September 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Monsters and Critics | Comment
Monsters and Critics

The real fate of the 9th Legion may never be known, but I'm sure whatever happened to them was more interesting than this movie.

September 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Three Movie Buffs | Comment
Three Movie Buffs

Marshall's film has a good helping of subtle smarts, but he is more concerned through most of the running time with carnage and bloody thrills.

September 3, 2010 Full Review Source: DCist | Comment

Centurion is like 'Gladiator' directed by Freddy Krueger

September 3, 2010 Full Review Source: What Would Toto Watch? | Comment
What Would Toto Watch?

... fine for a midnight screening or a Saturday matinee (although it's too violent for kids) but doesn't hold up under close scrutiny.

September 2, 2010 Full Review Source: Playback:stl | Comment
Playback:stl

Anachronistic dialogue, happenstance plot turns and characters so thinly conceived as to be interchangeable all but counteract cinematographer Sam McCurdy's otherwise stalwart Cinemascope work.

August 28, 2010 Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | Comment (1)
Boxoffice Magazine
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Centurion

amazing visuals and a decent story but somehow feels like it could have been so much better.

August 25, 2010
jmanard52

Super Reviewer

"This is neither the beginning nor end of my story" Centurion answers the question of what happened to the ninth legion. Its full of violence, blood, and history. Michael Fassbender performs very well as a roman hero. The rest of the cast performs admirably enough. The plot is thin, but intriguing. The movie brings to

December 24, 2011
Nathan H.
Nathan Hall

Super Reviewer

    1. Centurion Quintus Dias: My name is Quintus Dias, I am a soldier of Rome, and this neither the beginning nor the end of my story.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)
    1. Centurion Quintus Dias: In the chaos of battle, when the ground beneath your feet is a slurry of blood, puke, piss and the entrails of friends and enemies alike, it's easy to turn to the gods for salvation. But it's soldiers who do the fighting, and soldiers who do the dying, and the gods never get their feet wet.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Centurión: lucha o muere (ES)
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