The Last Legion

Rating: 4/10 (17 August 2007)

I went to see this movie only because it had one of the Bollywood leading lady  Aishwarya Rai. I knew the movie had poor ratings and did not expect much from it before entering the theatres.
The story is about the blood line of Julius Ceaser  a young child Romulus Augustus (Thomas Sangster) whose parents are killed, kingdom overthrown and he imprisoned. His personal guard Aurelius (Colin Firth) joins hands with a couple of his own guards and Mira (Aishwarya Rai) and with the help of a sorcerer Merlin (Ben Kingsley) rescues the child and defeats the enemies.
The movie is stupid to say the least, as if we are seeing some B-grade movies of 70s. It has good sets, and excellent actions; but the screenplay and dialogues are a big let down. Overall the casting is very poor. Colin Firth huffs and puffs to fit the role of a warrior guard, and so overacts Thomas as a child emperor. Ben Kingsley  what are you doing in this movie? As a moral guardian of the young emperor Ben Kingsley still sounds like Mahatma Gandhi when he opens his mouth and says some philosophical and thoughtful things. Aishwarya was okay. To make her look like an Indian beauty the make-up artist put layers of brown shining dusk on her face and body. She performed her role with commitment, but over-expressed herself in violent actions scenes.
For director Doug Lefler, this was his second ambitious project and that too with historic setting. I should say that the quality of details in expensive sets and costume etc. was finely done. The action scenes were good but not up to the mark of great directors.
So what was positive about this movie? I think it is a good entertainment for children and family. It does not have a heavy complicated story, and gory of sex and violence  that is normally seen in such movies. It is a clean entertainer in that way.
(Stars 4.5 out of 10)