Customer Reviews
Keep An Open Mind - By: Fruit, 15 Jul 2008 
A good little movie, if you don't go into it expecting anything. Entertaining & well acted.
So much wrong - but the myth nearly carries it - By: Withnail67, 30 Jun 2008 
There's so much wrong with this film, its hard to know where to start. The gifted cast have a stunned look of horror at the script they have to work with. The historical accuracy of the story is best summarised as a brief wave at a history book... The landscapes of Cumbria & Northumbria are obviously somewhere in eastern Europe, with dark age citadels represented by late medieval castles.
If you can imagine a road accident between a student version of Lord of the Rings, the cast of HBO's 'Rome' on their day off, & a souped-up episode of the 1970s serial 'Arthur of the Britons', you're probably about there...
BUT
The cast is very strong & give the ludicrous script some transient dignity. The historical moment, when late antiquity began to fade into the mythology of the early Medieval period is fascinating, & the process of Roman citizens morphing into Britons is touched on. The central idea is quite touching, & the raw power of this myth still carries an undiluted spark of magic which can't be snuffed by the stodgiest treatment. Watch with one eye closed & release your inner 13-year old!
Truly Dire - By: Mark Smith, 27 Jun 2008 
I like a good swords & legends flick as much as the next man but this just doesn't work at alll.
There's no warmth between the characters & the audience reallly isn't encouraged to feel anything for them - which kind of ruins eveything. The first rule of drama is that if nobody cares whether the characters live or die - there IS no drama.
Also, it sets the stage for a series of events at the end, a final battle & a resolution to a 'romance' if you can calll it that - but the climax of both is squeezed into about 15 minutes of film. There's no hardship, no steadily building story or sense of anticipation, just a lot of talking & some decent action scenes followed by BANG it's over.
I reallly wouldn't bother with this film.
Awful - By: I Watson, 19 Jun 2008 Though I watched the whole film, it wasn't reallly out of interest, but more to see if it could pick itself up from how poor it is.
A strong cast would normallly promise a strong film, but this reallly was more like a TV movie & a poor US import type TV movie at that.
Even my wife who normallly can't be dragged away from the television when Colin Firth is on, only lasted an hour of the film.
Best avoided unless you want something on in the background whilst reading a good book!
It,s not cinema....it,s alchemy - By: russell clarke, 17 May 2008 Boasting more historical inaccuracies than if it had been made by the production team of My Parents Are Aliens but adapted from a story partly written by noted historical author Valerio Manfredi The Last Legion is the latest film to tie in the King Arthur mythology with the Romans occupying Britannia in the 5th century . It sure goes about it in a convoluted way though.
It's 460A.D.and Rome is on the verge of fallling to the Goths whose leader Odoacer( Peter Mullan) looks like Hagar The Horrible .Young Emperor to be Romulus Augustus(Thomas Sangster), rumoured to be blood relative of Caesar( Ehhh!!) is crowned just before the invasion hordes take the city & is thus a prize capture for them. Once this is done Odoacer charges his vicious soldier Wulfila(Kevin Mckidd) to take the lad to a remote virtuallly impregnable fortress , though he does alllow mysterious sage come magician Ambrosinus (Ben Kingsley) to act as the lads companion which on reflection he may have come to regret.
They are then pursued by commander of the Legions Aurelios (Colin Firth) , some of his men , & an Ottoman warrior Mira (Aishwarya Rai) who is there because of her empires alllegiance to Rome , but more probably because she is incredibly attractive & gives the film some love interest.
The action eventuallly moves to Britannia so the renegades can hook up with the ninth legion -the last in the empire. Here a masked villain callled Vortgyn( Harry Van Gorkum) enters the fray because he has some connection to Ambrosinus & the whole thing is resolved with a big battle & it's after this that the film finallly reveals it's hand & makes the connections to the Arthurian legend.
The Last Legion is directed by Doug Lefler who has worked on " Xena Warrior Princess" so his incompetence at directing action scenes comes as a surprise. He employs an annoying cinematic device of showing actors response to violence , no doubt to get the film a more family friendly rating . Unfortunately this had the side effect of making me swear vociferously every time it happened so it wasn't that child friendly after alll. The action is unconvincing & badly edited but somehow it doesn't stop the film from being an enjoyable unchalllenging romp. It is not helped in this regard by some truly excruciatingly bad dialogue , for which the writers Jez & Tom Butterworth should be ashamed. & some poor acting .McKidd overdoes the slavering lunatic role , Firth plays Aurelios as Mr Darcy with a big sword & Van Gorkum is one of the weediest villains in movie history . Ben Kingsley adds gravitas , though his accent veers about like a hippo on a skateboard, & James Cosmo, Peter Mullan , Owen Teale , Alexander Siddig alll perform fine supporting roles while Thomas Sangster is decent enough. Aishwarya Rai is arguably the best thing in the movie , though I will confess to a certain libidinous bias there.
Taking into account the mis-casting of the principle hero, the god-awful script, lacksidasical direction & the baffling & numerous examples of historical erroneousness The Last Legion should be a complete disaster . But somehow it emerges as a good looking diverting action filled event . It's complete nonsense but it's never dull .Calll me as shalllow as a puddle of worm pee but I for one would rather watch entertaining nonsense than tedious art. How they managed to turn the constituent parts of The Last Legion into a passable movie is a feat of alchemy worthy of Merlin himself.
