Starring Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, and Thomas Sangster. Rated PG.

In cinema, as in literature, the Arthurian legends have become increasingly Romanized during the last few years. Perhaps because the cock-and-bull elements of the Camelot chronicles are so extreme, an obscure Welsh chieftain taking up arms against the Saxons during the last days of the Roman Empire provides the hoary stories with some superficial verisimilitude.

Unfortunately, The Last Legion is, in its way, every bit as whacked-out as the most improbable imaginings of Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain and is enough to drive a despairing classicist to late-night reruns of Xena: Warrior Princess.

Director Doug Lefler, coscripters Jez and Tom Butterworth, and source novelist Valerio Manfredi would have us believe that, in AD 460, 12-year-old Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus (Thomas Sangster) fled to the empire's westernmost province to escape the triumphant Goths (of whom Kevin McKidd is the most vicious, as well as the one with the fewest bodily parts). He is aided by Aurelius (Colin Firth), the last leader of the Praetorian Guard; Ambrosinus (Ben Kingsley), a closet druid; and Mira (Aishwarya Rai), a warrior woman from the eastern Roman Empire. Only in Britannia, it seems, can hope survive.

The Last Legion is quite a prim example of the sword-and-sandals genre. The action is at best okay, looking at times like a cheap Italian import from the early 1960s. The film's only salvation is its young star. Sangster (who mutates into an extremely improbable Arthurian character) delivers his clichéd lines so sincerely, he manages to infuse them with genuine emotion.

If not for him, the film would be a complete waste of time.