The Last Legion

 1/4

Starring: Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Kevin McKidd, Peter Mullan

Rated PG-13 for Sequences of Intense Action Violence

Oh dear...

That was my thought watching this cinematic train wreck.  This is one of those movies where I stared at the screen in a state of dumbfounded shock.  Every scene seems to fall flat because of bad decisions on the part of the director, questionable casting, or an idiotic screenplay.  There are more than a few moments that are laugh aloud funny, but not intentionally.  "The Last Legion" is begging for the MST3K treatment.

Romulus (Brodie-Sangster) is the newest Caesar.  But just after he is crowned, Odoacer (Mulan) invades with Wulfila (McKidd), his monstrous second-in-command who has serious anger issues.  Fortunately, he has some allies: the dour-yet-heroic Aurelius (Firth) and his comrades, the mysterious warrior woman Mira (Rai Bachchan) and his mystical teacher Ambrosinus (Kingsley).  Ambrosinus tells him of a prophecy of a man who can bring peace if he find's Julius Caesar's fabled sword.  Or something like that.  The confused storyline isn't clear on this.

The film's minuscule budget frequently calls attention to itself.  It looks like it was shot on a studio lot with paper mâché props.  The film looks cheesy enough to bring "Clash of the Titans" to mind, and that is not a good thing.  Moments that should be epic are instead filled with a few dozen extras at most.  And yet this film cost a whopping $67 million!  Where did the money go?  I've seen movies with a quarter of the budget that felt more epic than this stinker.

Director Doug Lefler appears to have no idea what he was doing.  Everything is filmed in tight TV shots with a static camera.  Every fight scene is too improvised.  Every dialogue scene is too bland.  The plot is a mess that seems to make itself up as it goes along.  It's usually easy to see what he was going for, but that makes all the more obvious how much he fails.  Tonally, the film never finds its footing.  Sometimes it wants to be a "Raiders of the Lost Ark"-style swashbuckler, other times it wants to be something along the lines of "Gladiator."  And while I'm not the biggest fan of Ridley Scott's Roman epic, it was a hell of a lot better than this.

Colin Firth is the lead.  In an action movie.  The idea sounds absurd on its face, but the reality is much, much worse.  In the right role, Firth can be a solid actor, but his range is limited.  And he certainly doesn't have the chutzpah or the machismo to be an action star.  His would-be rousing speech at the end reaches new levels of campiness.  Ben Kingsley is in full "take the money and run" mode, and appears to hope that no one recognizes him.  Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is certainly glamorous, but she doesn't display much range.  Not that she has much to do to begin with.  Her romance, if one can call it that, with Firth is completely dead on arrival.  These two generate so little heat that they might as well be ice cubes.  Thomas Brodie-Sangster does his best, but there's no saving the dialogue he is given.  Kevin McKidd is a scene-stealer, although not for the right reasons.  Sporting the worst make-up job I've ever seen and in a never ending stage of constipated rage, McKidd never comes across as anything but cartoonish.  Aurelius is more threatening than this loser, and he's the hero.

"The Last Legion" is a worthless waste of time.  There's barely a single element that works.  Nearly everyone with more than a handful of lines is miscast or phoning it in (or both).  The director is clueless and appears to be working with a screenplay in rough draft form.  The dialogue is a joke.  The list goes on and on.  On the other hand, lovers of camp would do well to check this one out.  This is a movie to watch with some quick-witted friends and plenty of booze.  It's only usefulness is to laugh at how even a z-grade adventure movie can go so, so wrong.

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