Frigid watched The Eagle

[frigidmagi]

Alright, I just finished watching it with a number of my buddies, including Silence and I (who has not posted here in years but says hi), Angeloid and Caadar. You likely already read Havoc's review here, if not you should.

Spoiler warning applies.



Okay first 30-45 minutes or so? Awesome! Our hero Marcus Aquila is sent to take command of a small fort in backwater north England, the shots showing the march to the fort really established the difference between England 120 and England 2011. Marcus quickly shows himself to be "hard charging new CO" and I liked how they did it. They seemed to have grasped the relationships and small actions of a company of troops. There's one scene where he looks down the file to gage their line, something officers still do today, nice touch there. Course today it's for drill which we barely if ever us. Back then their lives depend on it.

Marcus has them rebuild the defenses of the fort which had gotten a bit run down and send out a patrol for a late grain shipment. His officers are against the patrol, feeling the shipment isn't that late and there's a druid stirring up the locals. Marcus overrules them, this turns out to be a bit of a mistake honestly. The locals ambush the patrol and try a night attack on the fort. Marcus wakes up hearing a sound that he can't place and after being unable to hunt down the source wakes up and arms the men. One of his officers points out that even Marcus thinks it's bullshit and the men will be pissed if it's for nothing. Marcus replies "Better them angry then dead."

Marcus is shaping up to be a pretty good CO here.

They fight off the night attack with Marcus doing more then his fair share of fighting. There are no formations here due to them fighting on the walls. After the night attack the troops have a much higher opinion of Marcus (before the night attack, he was the asshole who made them rebuild the fort and sent a much of their buddies out to do several days marching in full gear, never popular) to the point where some of them while saluting tell him well done. I've never done that for a Lt. I would hate for one to get ideas you see.

Well the locals come back with the patrol tied up. The Druids yells about how they've stolen their lands killed their sons defiled their daughters but now they're gonna get their own back! And beheads a Roman. Good times.... Good times.

Marcus decides that since it's his fault that the patrol is out there and he needs to go get his men back (Have I mentioned he's a good CO?). He leds the men out and we have a fight! And.... there's fucking shakeycam.
-10 movie!

Still I enjoy the fight, the Romans stay in formation. They operate first in the testudo and break out in a circle to surround and free the captive legionaries. They're slugging it out hardcore when the chariots show up and Marcus panics ordering a run back to the fort, way wrong answer. Marcus refinds his manhood and using a thrown spear kills the Druid but get's clobbered by chariot wreckage. From here the movie is much less awesome.

He wakes up in south England with the Uncle he didn't even knew he had (really? where was uncle when daddy got butchered by screaming painted savages and Marcus was left fatherless?). He's been lamed by the battle and is a bit depressed. To make it worse his XO shows up, now Marcus is excited to see his XO to find out how his unit is. He gets a armband, the unit gets a wreath for the standard annnd he's discharge. Marcus instantly deflates at his discharge and when everyone leaves we hear him scream in horror.

Uncle takes him to a crude gladiator game where we see a slave (Esca) pitted against a gladiator. Slave don't play, throwing away the weapons. This actually makes sense, alot of tribes men seriously objected to being part of the games to the point of refusing to fight, it wasn't the fighting they objected to, or even the killing, it was being made entertainment that they simply loathed.

Everyone calls for Esca death's until Marcus yells everyone out of it. I got to ask, why does everyone change their mind? Because some dude yells? What? Well Uncle buys Esca mainly because this is the first thing he's seen Marcus give a shit about, that for the laughs. Esca swears to serve Marcus for saving his life because... He's a barbarian they do this shit.

Well one dinner party gone wrong later they run off to Scottland to find the eagle because some politician douche says there's a rumor. I call him a douche because he pisses all over his host's dead family... WHILE EATING THEIR DAMN FOOD.

Esca spends some time leading him in circles in Scotland pretending to ask about the eagle. Marcus cottons to this and there's some knife play until he finds out what he wants. They go to the forest where the battle takes place (wait haven't I heard of this battle? Didn't it take place in Germany?). They get jumped and subdue a deserter from the legions, who they recognize via his chin scar from the straps. He admits he fled the battle because everyone was getting gutted and the barbarians were tearing out people's hearts. To be fair this would freak me out to. The folks I fought were into throat slitting and beheading.

During this we get some duo viewpoints, for Marcus Rome is honor, civilization, glory and ice cream. For Esca they're slaving, murderous invading bastards who killed his father, brothers and because of the behavior of the Legions (and everyone else back in the day) his father killed his mother rather then let her fall into Roman hands. The Locals has a bunch of invading, raping, murdering foreigners. The Romans see themselves as bringing civilization and glory to a poor and benighted land.

Well this friction between them leds to a screaming fistfight, which is interupted by the Seal People... Who are crazy... Because they paint themselves all over, everyday. This is something that can lead to heat stroke guys, painting your skin makes it harder to dump excess heat and makes it harder to get oxygen. Bad idea.

Esca is welcomed as a guest and Marcus is now a slave. Yay Role reversal! Esca treats him like shit, even inviting his hosts to kill. Marcus "finds" the eagle during a manhood ceremony and charges in the middle of the ceremony! Shouldn't he be dead now? Esca wakes Marcus up after this to go steal the eagle... Wait what? You've said you hate him, hate his nation and invited others to kill him? Now you're turning on your hosts who fed you and treated you like family? Well... You did swear a oath...

They run and their horses die. Now I'm gonna disagree with Havoc here. Humans can and have run horses to death, horses are carrying more weight and don't have the endurance of a human being. A well conditioned human can run all day and night. A horse will die if it tries.

Esca hides Marcus and chases down the deserters bringing them back (why do they have their shields? That's the first thing you toss when you run). There's a fight, Ex-Romans win, we all go home after a moving funeral.

We run into political douche, who once again reminds us he is in fact... A douche. As they walk out Esca asks what they do now and Marcus tells Esca he can decide... Wait this is a buddy movie how?


*Sigh* This movie starts out so awesome and has such a great setting but slides into mediocrity so fast. I wanted to go back to the fort movie, remember the fort when you were awesome?

The grade for this movie is a C-. Great ideas, confusing shifts in tone and lousy execution.