4/10
It's the dialogue that's always tricky in these movies set 2000 years ago. Make it too classical, and it sounds cheesy; make it too modern, and it sounds stupid. Neil Marshall, being the kind of director he is, errs on the side of the 21st century.
The Ninth Legion is sent north into what is now Scotland to quell the Picts, the indigenous people of the region at the time. Things go wrong, and a small band of survivors has to try to escape back South, with the hounds of hell hot on their trail. Marshall's previous films include The Descent, Doomsday and Dog Soldiers. If you have seen those films, you'll know what to expect. A lot of throat-cutting, beheading, and all round violence, complete with spurting blood and squelchy noises. And it's oh so dull.
Which is a shame, because leading the cast, and deserving much better, is Michael Fassbender as a centurion, along with Liam Cunningham (who costarred with Fassbender in the stunning Hunger), David Morrissey and Dominc West. Oddly, there are also at least three hot chicks on display, two woad-smeared baddies, and the third one not only sympathetic, but endowed with flowing golden locks and full make up. I expect Marshall would say that realism was not his intention; in which case, why bother setting the film in that period anyway?
I would also question his decision to restage the jumping-into a-river-from-a-great-height scene from Butch Cassidy. A homage? Well not if you're simply copying the original. And originality is what is painfully absent from the whole enterprise. Battle scenes, chase scenes, quiet personal scenes - they're all second or third hand - and the only distinctive Marshall note is the sight and sound of a sword or a knife being wedged in someone's flesh.
