First to say, for a very low budget no-name film, I was highly impressed by the attention to detail in terms of historical accuracy. Set in the early Roman Empire during the reign of Nero, it depicts a legion being trapped in enemy territory in Armenia.
The main character is a Roman auxiliary, Noreno, originally from Hispania and he is sent on a mission by general Paetus to get a message to Corbulo to send his own legion to try to break them out.
Noreno is accompanied by another Hispanian auxiliary. Noreno is played by an Irish guy with a thick Irish accent but apparently this is explained in him being raised in Britannia for a long while. His Hispanian companion speaks Spanish (modern spanish).
As well, the Armenians are described as having support from the Parthians, and a large number of Scythian mercenaries. Impressively to me, much of the "bad guys" hunting after Noreno, due to being played by very european looking guys, are dressed and described as being Scythian. One of them even calls his superior "Saka", a name for a steppe tribe neighboring to the Scythians.
This attention to cultural detail is rather amazing overall, and it feels bad just how thoroughly wasted it is on such a boring film.
The low budget shows pretty hard in the scenes involving the Roman generals, but the majority of the film takes place in vast empty woods and hills, filmed somewhere in Spain or something. It feels a lot like some 80% of this film consisted of a film crew filming some guys hiking and swordfighting in the Spanish mountains.
Mickey Rourke is so completely disconnected from the film that it genuinely feels like his role was added after the fact and filmed months or even a year after the rest of the film was completed.
He plays his role surprisingly well as a disgruntled grizzled old general. Unfortunately his role is almost entirely him droning on ranting and raving at a bust of Nero, telling old soldiers' tales and the like.
As well, somewhat humorously, he proceeds to constantly mispronounce various names, such as turning "Parthians" into "Parthinians" and "Paetus" into "Patitius" or something. The fact that literally every other character in the film who speaks these names pronounces them properly either means no one cared enough to stop him and correct him or they were otherwise intimidated for some reason.
Further adding to the sense of disconnect in Mickey Rourke's scenes, near the end of the film he is abruptly contradicting everything he was ranting and yelling at a bust of Nero about, before being talked out of his bad decision by his Yuezhi mistress, played by Bai Ling for all of about 4 minutes.
On top of being boring, the film at some points seems to have been badly edited. At one point we're shown Noreno on his own, escaping some Scythians hunting him, and he runs into another Roman auxiliary scout. The next scene shows him at a campfire with this other Roman, and with a previously unmentioned Hispanian auxiliary (the spanish speaking guy). He then has a flashback of the Roman auxiliary scout and the Hispanian guy being killed in battle, despite them being alive and at the campfire with him.
Then Noreno is off on his own, with absolutely no mention of these other two with him, or of any battle that took place between him escaping the Scythians and making camp.
On top of all this, the biggest insult is that in a movie called "The Legion", at no point do we ever get to see the legion in question.
The main character is a Roman auxiliary, Noreno, originally from Hispania and he is sent on a mission by general Paetus to get a message to Corbulo to send his own legion to try to break them out.
Noreno is accompanied by another Hispanian auxiliary. Noreno is played by an Irish guy with a thick Irish accent but apparently this is explained in him being raised in Britannia for a long while. His Hispanian companion speaks Spanish (modern spanish).
As well, the Armenians are described as having support from the Parthians, and a large number of Scythian mercenaries. Impressively to me, much of the "bad guys" hunting after Noreno, due to being played by very european looking guys, are dressed and described as being Scythian. One of them even calls his superior "Saka", a name for a steppe tribe neighboring to the Scythians.
This attention to cultural detail is rather amazing overall, and it feels bad just how thoroughly wasted it is on such a boring film.
The low budget shows pretty hard in the scenes involving the Roman generals, but the majority of the film takes place in vast empty woods and hills, filmed somewhere in Spain or something. It feels a lot like some 80% of this film consisted of a film crew filming some guys hiking and swordfighting in the Spanish mountains.
Mickey Rourke is so completely disconnected from the film that it genuinely feels like his role was added after the fact and filmed months or even a year after the rest of the film was completed.
He plays his role surprisingly well as a disgruntled grizzled old general. Unfortunately his role is almost entirely him droning on ranting and raving at a bust of Nero, telling old soldiers' tales and the like.
As well, somewhat humorously, he proceeds to constantly mispronounce various names, such as turning "Parthians" into "Parthinians" and "Paetus" into "Patitius" or something. The fact that literally every other character in the film who speaks these names pronounces them properly either means no one cared enough to stop him and correct him or they were otherwise intimidated for some reason.
Further adding to the sense of disconnect in Mickey Rourke's scenes, near the end of the film he is abruptly contradicting everything he was ranting and yelling at a bust of Nero about, before being talked out of his bad decision by his Yuezhi mistress, played by Bai Ling for all of about 4 minutes.
On top of being boring, the film at some points seems to have been badly edited. At one point we're shown Noreno on his own, escaping some Scythians hunting him, and he runs into another Roman auxiliary scout. The next scene shows him at a campfire with this other Roman, and with a previously unmentioned Hispanian auxiliary (the spanish speaking guy). He then has a flashback of the Roman auxiliary scout and the Hispanian guy being killed in battle, despite them being alive and at the campfire with him.
Then Noreno is off on his own, with absolutely no mention of these other two with him, or of any battle that took place between him escaping the Scythians and making camp.
On top of all this, the biggest insult is that in a movie called "The Legion", at no point do we ever get to see the legion in question.