The setting of the story is shortly before the decline of the Roman Empire, 470 AD, where a young boy, Romulus (Sangster, Nanny McPhee), is set to inherit the Empire. He is captured after his parents are slain when the Germanic forces (Goths in this film) led by Odoacer (Mullan, On a Clear Day) sacks Rome and takes the city, as well as the surrounding territories, as his own. In real life, Romulus departure out of Rome marked the end of the Empire and he would never be heard from again, but in this mostly fictionalized story, Romulus is seen as being taken under the protection of the legion commander Aurelius (Firth, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), who escapes with a small faction of his best men, one Eastern woman warrior named Mira (Rai, Bride & Prejudice), and a two-bit magician named Ambrosinus (Kingsley, Lucky Number Slevin), who has acted as Romulus' mentor.
The Last Legion gets caught up trying to be too many different things for different audiences. It tries to be an epic, and yet it lacks the sweeping magnificence required to be truly breathtaking. It tries to be an adventure, but not given enough background information about the characters to be enrapt in their quest.
It tries to be a family-friendly film, yet it is also on the violent side, with every confrontation settled through means of killing, including a particularly troublesome murder near the end that will probably send mixed messages to the more impressionable members of the audience.While watching The Last Legion I got the impression that some responsible in making the film viewed it as a tongue-in-cheek lark and others thought it an adventure in the most noble of traditions.
The best thing that one can say about The Last Legion is that it does have a capable cast and some very good locale shots and CG-laced backdrops.The script by Jez and Tom Butterworth (Birthday Girl) isn't really aiming for that level, thinking it more of a direct epic adventure, but without an authentic-seeming historical treatment or a set up for an engrossing battle between the forces of good and evil. The Last Legion offers little but a good looking, capable cast trying their best not to smirk at what they must surely have considered an epic of absurdly small-minded proportions.
The Last Legion, the movie, is pretty much on par with the last legion depicted within. It's a small scale, ill-equipped, and rather desperate conglomeration of talent that hasn't the tools or ingenuity necessary to be truly formidable.
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