worth watching for several reasons and one performance

Rating: 8/10 (28 April 2010)

This movie may not be perfect, but it's fun if only because it touches so many cinematic bases: sword-and-sandal, mysterious Eastern ways, soldier buddies, heroic trek (and at least one "surprise" that might count as a spoiler if described, here but you'd have to have seen very few movies not to see it coming from miles away).
What makes the movie extraordinary, however, is its most remarkable performance, that of Thomas Sangster, who displays intelligence and an astonishing gravitas as the child ruler of the Roman Empire. There he is, up against Sir Ben Kingsley and Colin "Darcy" Firth, and in my humble opinion quietly blasts them off the screen...while playing a 12-year-old! (He was actually 17 during filming.) Though of a different ilk, it's as mesmerizing a performance as Haley Joel Osment's in "The Sixth Sense."
I'll watch anything he's in.