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1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/centurion-movie-poster_962.jpg]]
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3->''"I AM A SOLDIER OF ROME! I WILL NOT YIELD!"''
4-->--'''Centurion Quintus Dias'''
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6''Centurion'' is a 2010 film written and directed by Neil Marshall, the director of ''Film/DogSoldiers'', ''Film/TheDescent'' and ''Film/{{Doomsday}}'', and starring Creator/MichaelFassbender and Creator/OlgaKurylenko.
7
8The film explores the possible fate of the Legio IX Hispania, or the legendary Ninth Legion, that [[LostRomanLegion mysteriously disappeared from Roman records in the early second century AD]], for no given reason.
9----
10!!''Centurion'' contains examples of:
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12* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler: Etain's eventual death at the hands of Quintus is played tragically, showing that she was just as much a victim of this conflict as everyone else]].
13* AnachronismStew: The name "Hindu Kush" is mentioned here, yet historically, it was first used around 800 years later.
14* AnimalMotifs: Etain wears plenty of animal furs, particularly wolf pelts to illustrate how like a wolf she is herself.
15* ArmorIsUseless: Despite the obvious advantage of having heavy armor, the Romans don't seem to be getting much benefit from it. There are numerous shots of Picts killing Roman Legionaires without even having to bother with trying to find a chink in their armor, this despite the fact that Roman armor was quite advanced for its time and a noticeable advantage.
16* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Our heroes' swashbuckling fighting styles would not have been used by Roman soldiers, who actually favored a BoringButPractical short-ranged style based on Celtiberian sword fighting. Dias has an excuse, he was trained by his father, a gladiator, who would have showy moves, but not the rest.
17* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The Picts speak Scots-Gaelic. No record of the Pictish language exists, and the closest modern language to it is theorized to be Welsh, but Neil Marshall thought it would be too confusing to have a Scottish tribe speaking Welsh.
18* AxCrazy: Aeron is especially sadistic in battle.
19* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The 9th Legion is wiped out, and Quintus is a fugitive from Roman society, but he retires with his hot new girlfriend to an idyllic little cottage.]]
20* BlackVikings:
21** The film features Noel Clarke, an English actor with Afro-Caribbean heritage playing "Macros", a refugee from Numidia, and a legionary from the second cohort of the Ninth Legion. Schoolboy error here: Numidia, modern-day Tunisia, was populated by light/brown-skinned Berbers and descendants of Phoenicians colonizers. The writer had probably meant Nubia, the country in modern-day Sudan.
22** The same Roman unit also features Creator/RizAhmed playing Tarak, the company cook, who "hails from the Hindu Kush" (which neatly matches Ahmed's own Pakistani ancestry). This one is semi-plausible, as odd as it might sound, as at the time, the Hindu Kush had some contact with the Eastern Mediterranean area through the large Parthian Empire. Although it would be admittedly a long road, it would not be impossible for a local to end up in Roman territories.
23* BookEnds / IronicEcho: "My name is Quintus Dias. I am a soldier/fugitive of Rome, and this is neither the beginning nor the end of my story."
24* TheBrute: Vortix, a large warrior with a really large axe.
25* CallThatAFormation: The Ninth Legion tries to fight in formation, but the Pict strategy of rolling flaming boulders down a hill breaks their formation up, and then they attack before the Romans can reform. After the fall of the legion, none of the survivors are ever shown using any kind of formation tactics.
26* ChefOfIron: Tarak.
27* ChekhovsGun: Subverted. Tarak identifies death cap mushrooms early on and Brick sees them in the stew Arianne serves them, but it turns out he's wrong.
28* ChekhovsSkill: Played with. Macros is a champion runner and so Quintus knows that Thax is lying when he says Macros wasn't able to outrun the wolves.
29* CradlingYourKill: Done with [[spoiler: Etain]] after being stabbed in the stomach by [[spoiler: Quintus]].
30* CripplingTheCompetition: [[spoiler: When chased by a pack of wolves, Thax cuts Macros' tendon and leaves him behind, so the wolves at the very least stop to eat him and maybe even get their fill, leaving Thax safe]].
31* DarkActionGirl: Aeron doesn't appear to have any personal grudges against the Romans and just fights for the sheer love of brutality. She's one of the most violent and sadistic fighters on the Pict side.
32* DarkMagicalGirl: Etain's motivations are entirely personal, and special emphasis is placed on her being an InnocenceLost character. There is something supernatural about her, to the point that other characters speak about her as if she's a demon. Quintus wonders repeatedly how she has managed to track them so skillfully, implying this may be by magic, despite his dismissal of the idea.
33* DesignatedGirlFight: Averted. The Roman side lacks an ActionGirl, with the film's only female warriors, Etain and Aeron, fighting for the Picts. This would have been the case in the original script, where Arianne would fight Etain.
34* DirtyCoward: Thax. [[spoiler:He cuts Macros' leg so he won't be able to outrun the wolves, and can escape while they kill him.]]
35* DoubleAgent: Romans think that Etain is a Pict turn-coat, working for them. She's TheMole, planted as a native guide by the Picts.
36* DragonInChief: Etain is Gorlacon's Dragon but leads the army, and she is a more prominent character than him.
37* DualWielding: Etain uses a knife in one hand and an axe in the other in her fight with Dias.
38* DwindlingParty: [[spoiler:Only Dias, Bothos, and Thax make it to Hadrian's Wall. Dias implicitly calls Thax out on his treachery, and Thax is killed in their ensuing struggle. Bothos is shot with an arrow by the Romans, who mistake him for a Pict, killing him. So Dias is the only one who makes it inside. [[ShootTheShaggyDog Not that it matters anyways because the Romans try to kill him after all that]] [[HeKnowsTooMuch to keep the fate of the Ninth Legion a secret.]]]] For a full rundown:
39** [[spoiler:Tarak]]: Shot in the back by Vortix and Aeron.
40** [[spoiler:Leonidas]]: Speared through the head by Etain.
41** [[spoiler:Macros]]: Leg cut by [[spoiler:Thax]], who leaves him to the wolves.
42** [[spoiler:Brick]]: Speared by Etain. He proceeds to spear himself even further to kill the Pict behind him.
43* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Etain.
44* EmptyShell: Etain, as pointed out by Arianne:
45-->'''Arianne:''' Her soul is an empty vessel. Only Roman blood can fill it.
46* EyeScream: [[spoiler: Brick kills Aeron by stabbing her through the eye with [[HoistByHisOwnPetard an arrow that she shot into his back]].]]
47* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Doubles as a BilingualBonus. Virilus means manly in Latin, and General Virilus is very manly.
48* AFatherToHisMen: General Virilus is one, which is part of the reason so many of them try to rescue him from the Picts.
49* ForeignLookingFont: The opening titles and subtitles use Papyrus.
50* FreudianExcuse: Etain has good reasons to hate the Romans.
51* {{Gorn}}: There is plenty of it. As expected of Neil Marshall.
52* GoodScarsEvilScars: Arianne's scar marking her as an outcast over being accused of witchcraft. It's almost completely covered by her hair and doesn't detract from her beauty at all.
53* GrayAndGrayMorality: The Roman soldiers are part of an invading army yet all they're trying to do is rescue their general and get back home. The Picts are trying to fight off an invasion and want revenge for the prince's murder but at the same time they're ruthless and don't exactly treat their own people any better.
54* GroinAttack: During his fight with Vortix, Bothos knees him in the groin.
55* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Arianne has a soft golden-blonde hair color, which helps her be the only good female character in the movie.
56* HeKnowsTooMuch: [[spoiler:In the end, the Roman High Command decides it would be better for the Ninth to vanish without a trace than admit that an entire Legion had been lost in action for the first time since Emperor Augustus. So they order the last survivor murdered to ensure that he cannot tell the tale of what really happened to anyone else. Quintus survives the attempted execution and then flees north of the wall.]]
57* HeroKiller: Etain is personally responsible for the deaths of [[spoiler:General Virilus, Leonidas, and Brick.]]
58* HighHeelFaceTurn: Inverted. The lone woman with the legion turns out to be a Mole for the Picts. Of course from the Picts' perspective, it's a straight example.
59* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
60** [[spoiler:Aeron]] is stabbed by Ubriculius with an arrow she shot him with.
61** [[spoiler:Brick]] is speared by Etain with a spear he used earlier in the final fight.
62** [[spoiler:Etain]] is stabbed with her own knife by Dias.
63* HopeSpot: [[spoiler: Eventually what's left of the group of Roman soldiers reach the frontier outpost, happy to be finally safe. The outpost turns out to be abandoned, with an order to retreat beyond currently constructed Hadrian Wall nailed to one of the beams]].
64* HotWitch: Arianne was accused of witchcraft, and deliberately creates the impression that she is a {{necromancer}} to protect herself, but she doesn't really have any magical powers, although she is an expert on woodcraft and herb lore. She's definitely at least hot.
65* KubrickStare: Seems to be Etain's only facial expression.
66* LightIsNotGood: The Pict archer Aeron is blonde and pale-skinned, dressing mainly in bright clothes. Unlike Etain, she's given no sympathetic motives and is portrayed to be just as ruthless as her male counterparts.
67* LooseFloorboardHidingSpot: Arianne hides her Roman visitors underneath the floorboards of her hut when Etain and her warriors come calling.
68* LostRomanLegion: The Ninth Legion. And by "lost" it means "wiped out to the last man and removed from the records to keep the defeat secret".
69* MadeOfIron: Getting shot by Aeron makes Ubriculius only more annoyed, as [[LodgedBladeRecycling he pulls the arrow out of his back]] [[spoiler:and uses it to kill her, and by the end, he only dies when running a spear through himself to get the Pict behind him]].
70* MadeOfPlasticine: Both the Romans and the Picts suffer absurd injuries that would require their bodies to be made out of putty.
71* MaleGaze: Interestingly inverted: when [[spoiler:Etain]] kills [[spoiler:Virilus]], he's stripped down and she's fully clothed. Her costumes aren't particularly revealing throughout.
72* MasochistsMeal: At one point, the surviving legionaries, due to a lack of any gear or supplies, end up hunting for a doe and then start to eat the half-digested moss from inside its stomach, as they have neither time nor kindling of any kind for a better meal.
73* MaybeEverAfter: [[spoiler:Quintus and Arianne]].
74* MirroringFactions: The film examines that the Picts and the Romans are hardly different from each other at all since it ends with [[spoiler:Arianne and Quintus ending up together, who were both branded outcasts by their people]].
75* TheMole: Etain was raised to act as one to the Romans so the Picts could take their revenge.
76* MultinationalTeam: While they are all Roman soldiers (well, and a cook), the survivors of the ambush are a collection from all across the Empire and even outside its borders.
77* TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness: Who decides the ultimate fate of the Ninth Legion's legacy.
78* OldSoldier: Ubriculius looks like he could be a father to rest of the men in the group. Lampshaded, as he notes his 20-year long service is almost finished.
79* OurLadyOfSoundtrackSorrow: And how - half of the soundtrack is based on a single-voice wail.
80* TheQueensLatin: The Romans have British/Irish accents.
81** Also the Picts have Scottish accents in a film predating the arrival of the Scots in the area.
82* RealityIsUnrealistic: The Picts speak Scots Gaelic whereas in history, their language was remarkably similar to Welsh. Neil Marshall opted to use Scots Gaelic for fear of viewers getting confused about a Scottish army speaking Welsh.
83* {{Retirony}}: This was supposed to be Brick's last campaign before retirement. He even invokes the classic death flag of saying that he's planning to buy a farm.
84* RuleOfCool: The main driving force behind the movie, its plot and the (mis)adventures of the characters is how much cool stuff can be squeezed out of the TrappedBehindEnemyLines scenario with Romans in Pict-populated Scotland.
85* SacrificialLion: General Virilus, who would rather die fighting than be led to a slaughter. Once he's dead, the surviving legionaries have no further reason to stay in the lands controlled by the Picts and he knows that, sacrificing himself so his men have no reason to risk their lives for him.
86* SavageWolves: They end up chasing Thax and Macros. [[spoiler: Thax cuts Macros' tendon so the wolves are busy with something, while he runs away]].
87* ScarilyCompetentTracker: Etain, who leads the "hunting" party after the Roman survivors and always somehow finds a way to track them back, no matter what.
88* SceneryPorn: The film takes the whole mileage out of being allowed to film in the Cairngorms National Park.
89* ShirtlessScene: Quintus spends the first 20 minutes of the film shirtless. Ditto for Virilus when he's tied up in the Picts' camp.
90* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:Things go badly on the return, just outside of the Roman gate.]]
91* ShownTheirWork:
92** The armor is accurate for that time in Roman history. So are the gladii, AKA short swords used in the film by the Romans. Except the spears; for some reason they are older thrusting spears (hastae), not period-accurate javelins (pila) which have telltale elongated spearheads.
93** The clothing is on par with contemporary depictions of Picts, right down to the Celtic habit of putting white grease in their hair, which was discussed in the journals of Romans who battled the Celts and the Picts.
94** Women's status is depicted appropriately for what it was in Pict culture.
95** The language choice for the Picts, which would have been an approximation of a Celtic break-off language.
96** The stones that carry Pictish designs.
97** Depiction of Arianne's crannog, 100% accurate for the time period and the region.
98** The inscription in the fort found near the end is written in paleographically correct 2nd-Century Roman characters.
99* TheSpeechless: Etain [[spoiler:had her tongue cut out by Romans and thus never speaks, though she screams once]].
100* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler: After being driven by a spear, Brick realises he's screwed anyway, so he ''drives it further'', impaling one of his attackers]].
101* TerribleTrio: The three main Picts chasing the Romans: Etain (TheDragon) has two primary henchmen: a blonde female archer named Aeron and Vortix, a large, axe-wielding warrior.
102* SpikesOfVillainy: Etain's main weapon is a spear, with several spikes on it.
103* TiredOfRunning: After [[spoiler: finding the frontier outpost abandoned]], Dias invokes this verbatim (and he ''really'' is tired), ordering a LastStand. His reasoning is simple: if they survive it (and the current terrain at least gives them a chance), they will be free to continue their journey in peace. If they die, then at least they won't be chased like wild animals anymore.
104* TokenRomance: Dias and Arianne, though it only ends with a MaybeEverAfter.
105* TranslationConvention: The Scots-Gaelic is meant to represent the Picts' language, while naturally the English the Romans speak is supposed to be Latin.
106* TheUnfought: [[spoiler: Gorlacon, the leader of the Picts.]]
107* UnkemptBeauty: Etain. She's played by Creator/OlgaKurylenko, after all.
108* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler:Thax, who murdered Gorlacon's son to keep him from alerting the Picts during a night infiltration and thus motivated Gorlacon into sending a hunting party led by Etain to kill the Ninth Legion survivors.]]
109* TheVoiceless: Etain, due to TongueTrauma.
110* YouKilledMyFather: [[spoiler: One of Etain's good reasons to hate the Romans.]] Well if you want to be accurate it's "you killed my father, raped and murdered my mother, raped ''me'' and cut my tongue out".
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