Our recent Netflix pick was The Last Legion. This movie stars Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley with Aishwarya Rai and Thomas Sangster, the kid from Nannie McPhee. This is a fun movie not a serious movie!
It takes place at the end of the Roman Empire when Odoacer takes over the Western Empire. The last emperor, Romulus, a boy needs to be protected. At first the Goths take him to a prison where the few last Roman soldiers loyal to the Emperor and the emperor’s teacher Ambrosinus save him and go to England to find the last Roman legion. They go to England and find the last legion and realize that their chances of winning against Odoacer are lost. In England they face a new enemy, Vortgyn, a corrupt king who wears a gold mask. They win against Vortgyn and it turn s out that Romulus is the father of Arthur and Ambrosinus is Merlin. I don’t think that is a spoiler since the tagline for the movie is, before King Arthur, there was Excalibur. (Excalibur was Julius Caesar’s sword.)
The movie was as lot of fun to watch but I think it would have been better if they stuck more to history. History is always more fun. The end of the Roman empire is well documented. Vortgyn, also known as Vortigern is not as much. He is the British king who invited the Germans over and now we speak English! I think some of the fighting scenes should have been cut. I got bored watching Aishwarya Rai fighting hundreds of Goths. They should have had a few fighting scenes with Rai and had more fighting scenes with the Last Legion. Watching the Roman style of fighting for what was supposed to be the last time was dramatic and interesting. Vortgyn should have played a larger role. This movie could have easily been split into two movies. The first about the end of the Roman Empire and having the Goths as the major enemy, the second in England with Vortgyn as the major enemy. Also, it is forgotten that the Goths almost WERE the Roman army and were trained in the Roman style. They lived in Rome for years and were Christian. Odoacer was educated in the Eastern empire and would have been more civilized than shown. Also, do we HAVE to be PC? Do we have to have a female beating Goth warriors, Goth warriors? That was the weakness of the film. Also we had to have a token Asian (Indian) and a token African. To me that is the same as if I watched a Kung Fu movie starring a white man. I expect an Asian to star in a Kung Fu movie. The White guy starring in a Kung Fu movie comes across as weird. Jean Claude Van Damme is the exception. I would like to have seen the difference of the Goths, Romans, and Celts and the influence of the church at the time. However the movie is a lot of fun!
Late Antiquity offers a lot! There isn’t a lot documented so a writer could really use their imagination. I haven’t seen a great movie coming from this period yet! Anyone have a suggestion?
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