Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a story set in the time of Roman Britain. It begins with the `myth' of the 9th Legion, which might have been destroyed in battle with the wild Picts of Scotland. The bulk of the story though is concerned with the flight of a small group of survivors and the merciless pursuit of their fierce and vengeful enemies. Frankly I struggle to understand the low profile of this film and the lukewarm reports. In my opinion it is a perfectly reasonable movie with some exceptional aspects. These include the stunning scenery which really conveys the bracing cold and desolation but also beauty of the far-North. It looks like an ancient land, all rugged and wild and is almost worth the price of admission alone. The Picts are hard as glacial ice, tough and violent and look very impressive too. With the story itself I had a few quibbles but it was serviceable. The action scenes were generally good, even tense in places but I was annoyed with some battle scenes which featured the modern technique of very frequent and too fast cut-a-ways, making it hard to know exactly what was happening. A note here, it is very bloody - there are flying limbs, very crushed body bits and blood splattering everywhere. This is however what the weapons of the time did. Both sides are shown as the hard cases they were too. The Picts are savage but the Romans were hardly the Red Cross. The characters are adequate, with the Pict King and the deadly female tracker being quite impressive. I enjoyed watching the Roman legion on the match and in battle, though its camp routine seemed different to the acknowledged practice. But the uniforms and armour looked pretty good to a layman like me. There was also some funny soldier by-play to provide some chuckles. So, it's well filmed, showing the era about as authentically as you can get. The story itself is ok. There are some good twists and at times, some real tension! In all I found it to be very entertaining. It is a muscular film that deserves an audience. If you have interests in ancient warfare, you should find this quite rewarding.