In the waning days of the Roman emperor, a warrior and his men try to save the last Caesar, a young boy who finds the sword that would ultimately become Excalibur.

CRITIQUE

The Last Legion is an okay action-adventure that largely falls short simply because it all seems familiar – it feels like it was constructed from bits and pieces of films like Excalibur, Prince of Thieves and Braveheart.  Still, this works to a certain extent, largely because of the very solid acting, and through this isn’t great of its type, it’s entertaining enough to satisfy audiences in the mood for this type of thing.

The largely-fictional story takes place in the 6th century, when Italy is being overrun by the Goths, and young Caesar Romulus is taken prisoner and sent to the island of Capri.  This inspires Roman General Aurelius to lead a small group right out of central casting (a big black guy, a young cute guy, a woman) to come rescue Romulus, who has (somewhat contrivedly) just happened to find a prophesied sword that was hidden in the prison.

The tale is mostly just an excuse for a bunch of combat scenes, in which the heroes take on groups of bad guys and defeat them, leading to the big battle at the climax.  These combat scenes are something of a mixed bag; there’s always the sense that we have seen them before, while anything involving a thrown spear is fairly-cheesily handled.

Still, again, the acting really helps this a lot, even though the English accents are all a bit distracting.  Firth carries the film nicely, aided by Ben Kingsley (playing a teacher/sorcerer/Merlin character) and young Thomas Sangster (Love Actually), who does a good job as Romulus.  Beautiful Indian actress Aishwarya Rai adds some nice eye candy, as well as doing a decent job as the female warrior, though the heavy editing during all her battle scenes underscore the fact that she isn’t much of a fighter in real life.

Ultimately this pales next to the better examples of the genre, but as a heroic adventure it works on certain levels, and undemanding audiences will find things to like here.

THE VIDEO

The Last Legion is presented in widescreen (though exact specs are unclear).  The picture quality is good, not great.

THE AUDIO

The Last Legion is presented in English 5.1 Dolby Digital.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There is an Audio Commentary by director Doug Lefler, that is amiable and intelligent, and a good listen.

There are 17 minutes of Deleted and Extended Scenes with optional commentary by Lefler.  Though there are a couple of good scenes, most of the new things are just little bits cut for pacing reasons.

The Making of The Last Legion (21 minutes) is very clip-heavy, and fairly standard of its type.

There is a 12-minute piece on Fight Choreography.  Unfortunately it is just made up of wordless scenes of the actors and stuntmen rehearsing; there’s no insight into the process, and it all grows repetitive very quickly.

There is a 7-minute piece comparing scenes in the movie to the Storyboards.

There is a Trailer for the film.

FINAL THOUGHT