Centurion was a huge disappointment. I read that it had some comparisons to Apocalypto (love that movie), and I thought that a "chase movie" where Romans were getting their asses kicked by the native Picts sounded pretty great. It turns out that Centurion doesn't touch Apocalypto one bit.
The first hour of the 2010 action movie was terrible. That's bad enough, but its even worse when the movie is only about 1 hour and 30 minutes long. Bad pacing, editing, effects, overall direction. The pace was too fast; many moments lost power because it was flipping through events as quickly as possible. The editing was choppy; certain scenes felt like they were cut short, and there were many jarring cuts, tying into the pace. This film was very bloody and gory, but almost all of it was terrible CGI; I wouldn't care about the effects as much in a better film, but they drag down a disappointing film even more. The only believable character was Michael Fassbender's. There are some absolutely terrible characters, such as the black Roman soldier whose only trait is running fast. Yeah.
I assume that Centurion was a British film due to the inclusion of multiple black and Asian people in the Roman army, as well as the multitude of female warriors for the Picts. Yes, there were people of color in the Roman army, but they were very few and very far between. About the female warriors; just one question: why? Do women connect with stoic, glaring, silent female warriors who are willing to die on the battlefield with men? If so, this may be the movie for you. But I am opposed to it. As Roger Ebert bluntly stated, "Men are better at killing people." I guess I wanted more of a Braveheart and less of a Diversity Warriors for my historical war films. No need to be a documentary, but some realism would be nice.
There were many points during this first hour I felt like turning the movie off. I could barely look at the screen without cringing. I was pretty miserable, squirming in my seat like a rat. It was that bad.
After the first hour, the film throws a decent shock at you, slows the hell down, and actually gets good. No spoilers, but I was actually enjoying myself. At the end of the first hour, I was ready to give the film a 0.5/10, but after the movie ended, I was ready to give it a 3/10.
Overall, I don't recommend Centurion. I thought that this concept had a lot of potential, but it ended up letting me down. I really wanted to like this film. The only thing it has in common with Apocalypto is that the good guys get chased by the bad guys for a decent portion of the movie. The quality is nowhere near the same.
Submitted May 31, 2018 at 09:30AM by korbinkreme https://ift.tt/2xtl5gj