Blood and guts

Centurion
15, Nationwide

You know how it is. There are two sword-and-sandal films opening in cinemas, and you just can’t decide which one to see. Will it be Alejandro Amenábar’s Agora, which looks poised, if a little sterile? Or will it be Neil Marshall’s Centurion, which is all about the action, action, action? So you do as I did, and reach for a coin in your pocket. Heads, it’s Agora; tails, Centurion. You throw. The coin somersaults in the air, plunges back towards your hand, and…

Centurion is Marshall’s fourth feature, and it remains faithful to the horror-cum-comic-book stylings of his previous three. In Dog Soldiers (2002), it was soldiers versus werewolves. In The Descent (2005), it was potholers versus subterranean monsters. In Doomsday (2008), it was soldiers (again) versus dystopian punks. And, here, it’s the Romans versus the Picts. It may not be nuanced storytelling, but don’t necessarily hold that against the films or their creator. At its best, Marshall’s work is reminiscent of the old Hammer classics: unpretentious, colourful and put together with immense care.

Oh, and it’s bloody, too. All of Marshall’s films have crimson tributaries running through them, building up to swollen rivers of gore — and Centurion is no different. This much is clear from the opening battle, in which skulls are smashed, limbs sliced off and blood splashed liberally across the screen. And just in case you missed all that, the next scene introduces one of our heroes — a Roman general played by Dominic West (aka Jimmy McNulty from The Wire) — by having him stick a knife through the arm of a fellow soldier. The reason? Truly, I don’t know. They were having an arm wrestle, and then …well, it’s just that kind of movie.