The Last Legion

Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, Aishwayrana Rai

(sorry about misspelling her name there, need to verify and correct)

2007 ??

another quasi-historical epic, but leaning more toward the fantastic . . . basically you're left feeling somewhat sorry for this movie - in that it has been done many times before and really offers little in the way of anything new, different, or at least interesting.

Rai was good as the female warrior who kicks butt - that was OK. And Colin Firth's small but loyal band of Roman soldiers were good for a few comic relief moments, and Ben Kingsley's Merlin was sufficient. I won't even discuss the boy caesar's role because it was relatively insignificant.

Overall, the good aspect of the movie is that the actors are such professionals that even though they are not in their best form or giving their best work, they are still professional enough to pull off solid performances. The problem was with the script, which was too sweeping and disjointed.

Plot starts off all right - with the caesar without an empire (being ca 500 AD and the Goths have taken Rome) and the boy is whisked off to Brittanica in hopes of finding the last Roman legion - and there we suddenly have some guy in a gold mask trying to kill the boy and Merlin and raging against the prophesy and the Legion has already "gone native" (i.e integrated into the Celtic society - taken wives and had kids - which I thought was a neat little twist)

But then you have the obligatory war with the small band against gold mask's army and the last minute rescue by these soldiers-turned-farmers-taking up arms one last time.

Like I said - all done before, and with more coherent storylines.

VG