O Legionário

It's not often that I really criticise a movie, but this movie is utter dross.

From first minute to last, dross. Who thought it was a good idea to cast Mickey Rourke as a Roman general? He sounds like a punch-drunk Rocky doing an impersonation of Rod Steiger. Terrible casting.

The acting was as wooden as the trees in the Armenian forests. The editing and continuity were beyond bad. I mean, really, terrible. When the lead was scaling the cliffs, the continuity was all over the place. He was all over the rock face every 30 seconds, with the same sequence being reused several times, even though he'd moved on to a different section of the cliff just moments earlier.

The fight scenes were pathetic. The Asian woman cast as Rourke's mistress could hardly speak a word of English and mangled the lines badly.

The only one to come out of it with any credit was the actress playing Doria, the Armenian girl who helped the lead when he was lost in the mountains.

Seriously, don't waste your time.

Mister Rourke speaks in the beginning of the movie. Mister Rourke speaks somewhere in the middle of the movie. Mister Rourke speaks at the end of the movie. you have seen this before.. former stars make an appearance and they glue it together as if they we're part of the movie and probably never met the cast. " here.. say these lines and we will splice you into the movie so we can add your name to the cast and hope it draws paying customers.." don't waste your time.

From the opening scene when Rourke mispronounced Caligula "Caliglia " I knew this wasn't for me. I abandoned it after 15 minutes. Sad to see Micky Rourke slide further down the Hollywood alphabetical listings.

Painful to watch, terrible camera work, terrible Special effects. They can't even get the names/pronunciation right. I'm pretty sure my nephew could create something better on minecraft.

This movie is a subject matter I like so I gave it a shot but wow.

My biggest issue is Mickey Rourke. He fumbles through his lines while reading them off a teleprompter. He's wearing fake eye lashes on one eye and has manicured nails. He looks ridiculous.

The filmmakers must have really struggled with him. They had an idea in mind and they went for it. In many scenes the other actors give it their all which is why I gave this a 4.

The effects aren't great. I can forgive that. The action is okay. I can forgive that.

Mickey Rourke ruins the whole thing. He obviously can't even memorize a few lines now. I hope they didn't pay him too much. He clearly didn't prepare and was probably a nightmare to work with.