The movie starts off with Mickey Rourke as Roman General Corbulo mispromouncing the name of Caligula Caesar as Caliglia...and then it gets worse. Some bad digital effects fly by and soon Noreno, an Auxiliary Cohort is sent on a mission over the Armenian mountains with two accomplices in order to seek help from General Corbulo while trying to evade the men who are after him.
The digital effects are bad. The acting is mediocre although some of the lesser known faces try their best. There is hardly any character development but then again most of the characters are expendable and writing a decent script probably took too much time. Annoyingly, the accomplices are killed in the first 20 minutes and only then is some interaction shown between them and Noreno in a flashback. But since they were already killed off its impossible to feel any emotional attachment to the characters.
The editing gets very choppy during the fighting, falling and running scenes and some of the kills are done off screen probably in order not to have to worry about doing any practical or computer effects. There is also a 4 minute climbing scene which feels it was there just to fill in screen time. And there are other scenes like this that are just padding with Noreno running for three minutes then running again for a few more. The character of Noreno is also probably the worst Roman soldier ever since he gets captured and beaten at least 3 times and this is not even by the men chasing him but random thugs.
The monologues by General Corbulo spread out through the movie don't do much for the film but there are glimpses of what a great actor Mickey Rourke once was and he clearly has more acting ability then most of the other cast members. One more thing, seeing as Corbulo was the brother in law of Caligula he more than likely knew his name, but this and other mispronouncing mistakes really make me think that some of the actors might have been drunk or didn't care much during filming. Alas, watching the result is not a great way to spend an hour and thirty minutes. A possible 3 out of 10.
The digital effects are bad. The acting is mediocre although some of the lesser known faces try their best. There is hardly any character development but then again most of the characters are expendable and writing a decent script probably took too much time. Annoyingly, the accomplices are killed in the first 20 minutes and only then is some interaction shown between them and Noreno in a flashback. But since they were already killed off its impossible to feel any emotional attachment to the characters.
The editing gets very choppy during the fighting, falling and running scenes and some of the kills are done off screen probably in order not to have to worry about doing any practical or computer effects. There is also a 4 minute climbing scene which feels it was there just to fill in screen time. And there are other scenes like this that are just padding with Noreno running for three minutes then running again for a few more. The character of Noreno is also probably the worst Roman soldier ever since he gets captured and beaten at least 3 times and this is not even by the men chasing him but random thugs.
The monologues by General Corbulo spread out through the movie don't do much for the film but there are glimpses of what a great actor Mickey Rourke once was and he clearly has more acting ability then most of the other cast members. One more thing, seeing as Corbulo was the brother in law of Caligula he more than likely knew his name, but this and other mispronouncing mistakes really make me think that some of the actors might have been drunk or didn't care much during filming. Alas, watching the result is not a great way to spend an hour and thirty minutes. A possible 3 out of 10.