Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

The Last Legion (2007)

Time Out rating

Average user rating

12 reviews

Synopsis

This fantasy action-adventure zeroes in on the last emperor of ancient Rome, 12 year-old Romulus Augustus (Thomas Sangster), the boy who would rule for a day before losing everything: his family, his home and an empire. Imprisoned on the island-fortress of Capri, Romulus discovers "excaliburnus," the legendary sword of Julius Caesar. Aided by his teacher Ambrosinus (Ben Kingsley) and the heroic skills of his loyal legionnaire Aurelius (Colin Firth), Romulus escapes the island to search for to fabled Dragon Legion – the warrior that will help him enter legend with a valiant last stand to save Rome.

Movie review

From Time Out London

Crudely mangling Arthurian legend into Roman history, this creaky swords ’n’ sandals romper trundles forward like a hurriedly upholstered TV movie. No surprise, then, to find director Doug Lefler cut his teeth on ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. He plays this hokum straight as an arrow as a scrawny, boy-emperor (Thomas ‘Love Actually’ Sangster) tries to find a mythical sword, avenge his parents’ murder and save Rome from marauders led by Peter Mullan. Protecting him are Colin Firth as the gruff commander, Ben Kingsley as the sagely magician and Bollywood siren Aishwarya Rai as a swashbuckling Red Sonja. Bankrolled by the De Laurentiis clan, production values are half-decent, but bar the odd flashes of finger-hacking violence, this is an oafish regression from the epic quest fantasies of ‘Lord of the Rings’ and the blood-rinsed digital canvas of ‘300’.

Author: Jonathan Crocker

Time Out London Issue 1939: October 17-23 2007

Email Tweet Share

User reviews of this film

rita said...

Posted on Feb 26 2010 23:37 Does Colin Firth have agents or management looking after his career? A wife? Children? Friends? ANYONE?

Report as inappropriate
CAROL MILES said...

Posted on Dec 11 2009 06:06 "colin said -- best picture this year with out doubt anyonw who says this is not is on drugs." Is this message from colin firth?

Report as inappropriate
CAROL MILES said...

Posted on Dec 11 2009 06:01 EXCUSE MY BEING INAPPROPRIATE - THIS PC IS SHIT AND SO IS COLIN FIRTH IN IT..

Report as inappropriate
Laskmi said...

Posted on Jul 23 2009 22:53 This movie was so pathetic! It's a poor mans "Lord of the Rings." Definitely not worth anyones time...

Report as inappropriate
Elena said...

Posted on Mar 27 2008 17:03 They could have made this into a really good film! And it was only decent. They had storyline but it lacked action--and the timing was so unrealistic. They travelled on foot and boat from Italy to Scotland in like 3 days-I mean God-they could have had mountain assasins and a bit of house of flying daggers stuff and all they had a smelly old energetic 50 year old goth in a golden mask probably made of paper-mache! I mean come on! the love affair between Mira and Aurelius was so unconvcincing it just wasnt a love affair. Caesar turned out to be an annoying snotty nosed spoilt brat with no strength whatsoever-I yawned when watching IT. The book is so good and full of battle scenes that are probably as good as the lord of the rings and yet we didnt have any of it! They diluted the violence and made it into a 12 for little kids who arent going to understand it anyway and by doing it they completely wrecked your book Valerio Massimo Manfredi! Im really sorry! I gave this film a rating of 1 star simply for pity!!! A waste of 13 quid thats all i can say HMV!

Report as inappropriate
colin said...

Posted on Nov 29 2007 17:23 best film this year with out doubt anyone that says this is not is on drugs.

Report as inappropriate
Ella said...

Posted on Nov 03 2007 12:25 Well i thought it was cany good tbh.... I think those who didnt like it just didnt appreciate it!

Report as inappropriate
vinny said...

Posted on Nov 02 2007 19:27 shittest film ever, got made to go and see it by my retarded mate and i wud rather stay at my flat gettin cut up by a monkey in tights...

Report as inappropriate
Et3rnal said...

Posted on Oct 29 2007 16:22 Lame story makes no sense story jumps alot poor casting ,terrible script ,bad special affects i wanted to walk out but my friends and i did have fun laughing at its badness.DONT GO AND SEE IT waste of money.seems more apropriate for a tv movie

Report as inappropriate
kerry said...

Posted on Oct 28 2007 01:43 ...just wait for the dvd - don't bother with it at the cinema. I'm usually a fan of ANYTHING like this but was pushed to find any redeeming features in this 'feature.'

Report as inappropriate
Dennis said...

Posted on Oct 26 2007 20:40 poor story line, poor editing, poor script, miss casting (The plebs hero, Lucius verinus, as a baddy). Sorry but i was let down by several of my heroes.

Report as inappropriate
Lord said...

Posted on Oct 26 2007 09:51 YOU RUINED MY BOOK

Report as inappropriate