Centurion | DVD Review

Neil Marshall has said that he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed strictly as a director of horror films, but that he’d like to bring his horror sensibilities along into other genres. His first attempt, 2008’s apocalyptic actioner Doomsday, didn’t stray too far from the horror haunting grounds of his first two films, Dog Soldiers and the exceptional The Descent. With Centurion, however, Marshall has dipped his bloody toes into the crowded pool of swords and sandals epics, turning the water a nice shade of red along the way.

Written and directed by Marshall, Centurion is set in 117 A.D. as the Roman Empire attempts to capture and rule Britain, and tells the tale of one Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender, Inglourious Basterds), a Roman centurion who has escaped the clutches of the Picts, a vicious tribe that will do anything to get the Romans to leave them and their country alone, and joined forces with the storied General Virilus (Dominic West, Det. McNulty from TV’s The Wire) and his Ninth Legion. Believe it or not, this is sort of a true story, as the legend of the Ninth Legion holds that they were sent in to deal with the Picts and were never heard from again. In a particularly grisly scene in the film, the legion is ambushed and most of them are killed before the Picts take Virilus prisoner and bring him back to their encampment. The few Roman survivors of the ambush, led by Quintus, set out to free Virilus but end up killing the Pict leader’s young son in the process. At this point, the typical battle scenes of these types of historical adventure epics are traded in for some standard chase sequences pounctuated by moments of male bonding, as the Picts, led by their expert tracker Eitan (Olga Kurylenko, Quantum of Solace), seek revenge on the remaining Roman centurions. Who will survive? Who will prevail? Are politicians corrupt? Will somebody find love in all this mayhem? It’s all rather predictable, but man, is it a lot of fun!

Centurion may seem like a by-the-books adventure flick, and for the most part that’s just what it is. What’s remarkable is that even with such a small budget (approx. $12 million) for this type of film – with much of it being spent on fake blood – Marshall has managed to gather a surprisingly strong cast that also includes Noel Clarke (Doghouse, TV’s Doctor Who) as Macros, the token black centurion(!) and the absolutely stunning Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later, Me and Orson Welles) as a sympathetic Pict outcast who helps Quintus and his men when they are at their lowest. Throw in a fantastic musical score by Ilan Eshkeri (Kick-Ass, Hannibal Rising) and what you’ve got is….well, the word ‘meh’ comes to mind. The problem is that apart from the copious amounts of blood and gore, everything about Centurion has been done before. Hell, even the copious blood and gore has been done before, in 300.

The presentation of the film on this disc from E1 Entertainment is an audio/video achievement, with the frequent bright red splashes of blood and gore contrasting nicely with the greyish tones that denote the dour situation our heroes find themselves in. The lush scenery itself is almost worth the price of admission. And, of course, what better way to experience the sound of a soldier’s face smashing (exploding might be a better descriptor) against an immovable object – in this case, a tree – than in glorious Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound? The DVD also includes a bevy of features that are for the most part engaging and worth spending the extra time with:

Feature Commentary By Director Neil Marshall, director of photography Sam McCurdy, production designer Simon Bowles, and special make-up effects designer Paul Hyett
This group of four give us about as well-rounded a technical run-through of what making this sort of film entails, with each of them explaining the various issues their respective teams faced in terms of designing the sets, setting up shots, and creating certain gore effects. Marshall was pretty hands-on in all aspects of making Centurion, and he plays the part of emcee on the commentary quite well, keeping things from getting overly technical with a well-timed joke or reminiscense along the way.

Blood, Fire and Fury: Behind the scenes of Centurion
This 26-minute documentary is presented in four parts: The Lost Legion features cast and crew explaining the premise of the film and discussing the legend of the 9th Legion and its disappearance; in Getting Down and Dirty, Marshall and co. explain how they managed to make the film look gritty and realistic via a darker color palette, inventive productive design, and even using the inclement weather to their advantage; Guts and Gore obviously focuses on the plentiful and liberal use of blood and gore throughout the film and features some footage of how they set up certain shots for these bloody set pieces; and Fireballs, Stunts, and Mayhem goes behind the scenes of many of the battle and action sequences, including one of the coolest battalion-besieged-by-rolling-fireball scenes you’re likely to ever see.

Centurion Featurette
In what amounts to an extended advertisement for the film, this featurette repeats many of the elements from Blood, Fire and Fury, albeit in shorter bursts, interspersed with footage from the film. With the flourishing Video-on-Demand market, these glorified ads will be all too common on DVD releases from now on. Which isn’t to say they’re not cool, just unnecessary when everything in them is already featured as extras in extended versions on the discs.

Deleted Scenes with optional director commentary
Here we have 8 minutes of scenes that Marshal explains were mostly cut in the interest of maintaining Centurion‘s pace. He does mention that he agonized over cutting one of the scenes – a rousing speech given by West to rally his troops – but that he finally excised it because it’s a scene that is in every film of its ilk and he didn’t want it to be seen as cliché.

Interviews wth Cast and Crew
24 minutes of talking head interviews with Marshall, producer Robert Jones, and actors Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Olga Kurylenko, and Noel Clarke. There’s some interesting stuff to be found here, like Marshall explaining that his favorite scene, an early Pict attack on a Roman outpost, was actually filmed much later during the shoot and Fassbender saying that he chose to take the role of Quintus Dias because of the physicality involved and because Centurion is more of a chase movie as opposed to your typical swords and sandals epic.

Selected Clips
This was really unnecessary, as all it is is a 12-minute montage of various battle scenes from the film. Pure filler.

Production Design photo gallery
This slideshow features much of the production and set design behind Centurion, from conception to final product.

Outtakes
There are a few funny moments in this reel of bloopers from the film, most of them involving Dominic West. Good for a laugh.

B-Roll Footage
This featurette is actually quite interesting, showing clips of cast and crew in action. Sure, there’s lots of milling about, but for the most part, it’s cool to see the goings on before the director shouts “Action!” and after he yells “Cut!”

What else is there to say? Centurion is Neil Marshall’s second kick at the can of trying to bring his exceptional horror skills to more mainstream fare, but really, what the audience gets is a more-of-the-same kind of swords and sandals flick – albeit with a lot more blood and guts and even more blood. Which isn’t to say that Centurion isn’t a rollicking good time. By all means, Centurion is a perfectly passable historical adventure film, with the battles and tension and grandiose cinematic visuals that go along with it. It’s just that Marshall’s two best films were his first two, before he tried to branch out into the mainstream. Perhaps he should re-visit his horror roots soon and give his legion of fans what they really want.

Movie rating – 3

Disc Rating – 3.5