The Last Legion - epic film without the epic

In what is the probably the worst bit of mis-casting this year, Colin Firth (Bridget Jones, Love Actually) plays Aurelius, leader of the Roman Army. Firth in a romantic comedy or even a serious bit of drama would work for me but here, he is jarringly out of place. He does his best to keep the film glued together but there are WAY too many missteps for this to rise above anything but a low budget History Channel re-enactment that has gone terribly wrong in the facts department.

Don't even try to reconcile this against historical fact. Your head will hurt. That would be fine on some level as we have seen from "300", facts don't matter if the presentation can create a compelling story. But here, we get a lot of swashbuckling that might have been exciting about 25 years ago. Seriously, if this movie came out the same year as El Cid, it would have been a huge success.

As you watch, you see scene after scene that reminds of a previous film that was better executed and more memorable anyway. From Braveheart, to Lord of the Rings, to Conan, you will see a re-tread of famous scenes on a lower budget and less creativity.

What this film suffers from is a severe lack of budget which takes all the steam out of any "epic" feel that was being attempted. Even in the final "giant" battle, we see people running out of the woods, obviously extras, that look to be from a couple of high school football teams in shoddy costumes. "THIS" is the army we are to fear? Its a rag-tag group of unmatched costumes and people running in different directions.

Most things don't quite work in this but it never really gets SO bad that it is unwatchable. That is the weird thing about this film. You know every scene is sub par but not SO sub par that we can't enjoy it on some popcorn level and not laugh-out-loud inducing. It can be mocked to be sure but not with the joy that you might have in something like Alien vs. Predator or Moontrap.

What works in this? Not much.
- Actress Aishwarya Rai plays the female lead. She is kind of a fun "poor man's" Uma Thurman action woman. But she is definitely beautiful and there is some interest to her role. In terms of interesting characters, she is by far the most compelling to watch.

- The once a-list actor, Ben Kingsley is back slumming it yet again. (He didn't get enough with BloodRayne or The Sound of Thunder). But he does his best to earn his paycheck and always acts as though he doesn't know what movie he's in. He keeps the "wizard character" cliche alive and well.

There are many story issues that don't quite put together, but turn off your brain (you won't need it) in this one. Its good for some action and laughs (SilentKid is going to have a field day with this one) but its not quite as bad as you might think.