FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | preview: Doug Lefler's The Last Legion |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Thursday, 02 August 2007 | |
 Thomas Sangster in Doug Lefler's 'The Last Legion'. Photo (c): BFD, all rights reserved. Since Ridley Scott’s Gladiator was crowned Best Picture at the Oscars in March 2001, directors ranging from Wolfgang Petersen to Oliver Stone have tried their hand at reviving the swords and sandals genre, with varying degrees of artistic and boxoffice success. The latest entry in the bid for genre resurrection is the film The Last Legion from Doug Lefler, based on a book by Italian archeologist and historical fiction writer Valerio Massimo Manfredi. The Last Legion is a completely fictional story set at the end of the Roman Empire and stars Colin Firth, Aishwarya Rai, Thomas Sangster and Ben Kingsley. The UK-France-USA co-production will be released in the Netherlands today, with other countries across Europe following over the summer and into early autumn. Manfredi is probably most famous for his trilogy of Alexander the Great novels, and he also penned an adaptation of this trilogy that was to have been directed by Baz Luhrman, though the film never went into production when it became clear that Oliver Stone had beat the filmmakers to it with his own Alexander project. For The Last Legion, however, the screenplay was not written by the author of the original novel but by the brothers Jez and Tom Butterworth, who took the film world by surprise in 2001 with their excellent Nicole Kidman vehicle Birthday Girl, which Jez also directed and for which La Kidman even learnt Russian. Birthday Girl's story, however, which casts Kidman as a Russian mail order bride who ends up in England, is almost the opposite of historical epic, and how the two brothers landed their jobs on this film is an interesting question. The Last Legion starts in 476 after Christ, when the 12 year-old Romulus Augustus (Sangster, Liam Neeson's son in Love Actually) is crowned emperor of the Roman Empire. The barbarian invasions have already begun, however, and Romulus flees to the island of Capri with his teacher (Kingsley) and the head of the Royal Guard (Firth, also from Love Actually). They are joined by a fierce female Byzantine warrior (Rai) and undertake a voyage to England to locate a legion that might be willing to support the Emperor. The film incorporates elements of the legend of Arthur and the magical sword Excalibur, though it appears not to be as fantastical as those medieval tales -- much like the Hollywood film King Arthur from Antoine Fuqua tried to blend the fantastic tale of Arthur (played by Clive Owen in that version) and the historically accurate period of the late Roman Empire. Fuqua was not entirely successful, but then again, his story did not focus on Excalibur. The big incognito in the equation is director Doug Lefler, whose previous credits include directorial duties on several TV series, second unit director on the first Spider-Man and storyboard artists credits earlier in his career. Will he be capable of delivering a rousing historical adventure set in stunning locales (and filmed in Central Europe and Tunisia)? Certainly, with a 12-year-old boy king as the main protagonist and the unlikely incarnation of a Byzantine warrior with the traits of Ms Rai by his side, Lefler has more than a few credibility obstacles to overcome. It will be up to the audience to decide whether he deserves the thumbs up or thumbs down, Roman-style. Related links: |
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