I found this to be surprisingly good... except for the last 14 minutes

I avoided this movie for quite a long time due to... well, I can't actually remember, exactly. I suppose I'd heard some bad reviews or something. I dunno. Anyway, I just now watched it and I found it to be unexpectedly enjoyable. All the way up to the point that Esca miraculously shows back up with the remnants of the Ninth Legion. At that point, Wayne and Garth may as well have popped into the frame telling us they've decided to opt for the happy ending. It felt so out of place.

As soon as I saw them stroll up with a smirking Esca, my brow furrowed. "What the hell?" I thought. This seemed like way too convenient of an outcome. Especially with that soldier telling Marcus all the perfect things that he's always wanted to hear about his father. And these guys all just instantly banded together, ready for action, and decided to go risk their lives for this random guy?

Then I realized, "Oh, of course! He's having a hallucination due to his injury. Kinda like that thing that happened with Rick Grimes that time. It's probably going to cut back to him any moment now and we're going to see him lying dead next to the eagle, finally at peace. Then maybe we'll see the eagle float away or something, lost in time, explaining why future generations never truly find out what happened to the Ninth. It'll be a nice bittersweet way to wrap things up."

But no. That never happened. We stayed in this too-good-to-be-true dream sequence for the rest of the film. And it just got more too-good-to-be-true all the way up to the fluffy ending where the Roman and the barbarian lived happily ever after together. It just felt so... absurd. Especially when compared to the rest of the film, which was fairly dark and serious, and grounded in reality.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I enjoy a happy ending just like anyone else and I certainly didn't want Marcus to die. But the movie had set up his death so well that I figured surely that's what was going to happen.