What should be at its heart is a tale of an unlikely friendship between Roman Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum) and his British slave, Esca (Jamie Bell). However, the film gives very little in way of credibility as to how the friendship forms and how they move from mutual mistrust and enmity to surprising loyalty. When Sutcliffe wrote the character of Marcus it is doubtful that she envisaged muscle-bound and decidedly American Tatum talking of his family's honour being pissed on. However, Tatum's not the worst thing here (although his presence does seem to lead to the crazy fact that all the Romans, even those played by British actors, now have American accents). If anything, he holds his part better than Bell, who looks a bit lost searching for some believability in his role.
Structurally the film suffers from having the best set-piece battles at the start, leaving what follows as feeling rather flat, although the last stand of the remnants of the Ninth at the end briefly raises spirits. Also, whilst Centurion had some genuine tension and sense of threat in the chase across the Highlands to avoid the pursuing tribes, here things feel peculiarly tension-less. And then there's the problems with the tribes themselves - MacDonald seems to have put great effort into the historical accuracy of the Romans and their tactics (although there was one moment early on when the Romans were sitting huddled in their fort, afraid to send a patrol out because a druid had been seen when I did wonder if I walked into Asterix by mistake) and against them we have these British tribes who look and act more like they belong in Polynesia or the plains of Africa. Woeful.
Several of the films best moments come courtesy of twinkle-eyed Donald Sutherland and that, by itself, says a lot about how disappointing this really is. The landscape is well shot and the fights well-handled, but the characters lack depth and its generally dreary fare.
Overall 5.5/10 Disappointingly flat and unconvincing.
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