Monday, April 25, 2011
Yasith
Here I am after few weeks :( I've not forgot you at any cost in a busy schedule. This is one of the latest movie and an ultimately high quality 299 MB copy, if u can believe it or not.
If you venture to see The Eagle, an ancient Rome-set actioner starring Channing Tatum, it’s best you leave your political mind at home. I know it’s a challenge.
What with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still going, it’s easy to expect a contribution to the political dialogue from any contemporary war movie, no matter when or where it’s set. But don’t expect to find any side-taking political message here. All you’ll get are swords and sandals.
Set in Roman-ruled Britain in 140 A.D., the story centers on Marcus Aurelius Aquila (Tatum). He is a recently promoted Roman soldier who opts to have his command post in the troubled southern region of Britannia. It is where his father, 20 years before, set out from as the standard bearer for the Ninth Legion of Rome on a mission to conquer the northern lands of Caledonia (present-day Scotland). His father’s legion was utterly crushed by the native Britons, and his standard–a gold eagle–was captured. As a result, the embarrassed emperor Hadrian walled off the whole northern part of the island and declared the wall “the end of the world.”
Marcus is intent on redeeming his family name and decides to enter the hinterlands to retrieve the eagle. His only companion is Esca (Jaime Bell), a Briton slave. We know three things about Esca, whom Marcus saves from execution at the hands of a Roman gladiator. He has a penchant for inestimably brave, steely self-sacrifice. He is loyal to his word, a trait he learned from his dead father, who was killed at the hand of Roman centurions. And he hates everything that Rome stands for. This all makes him both the ideal and most uneasy companion for Marcus as he wanders through the land of the Seal people, the vicious northern tribe of Britons who’ve captured the eagle as a trophy.
Here’s what’s not in The Eagle: homoerotic subtext (so quit looking for it, you perv), heteroerotic subtext (there’s not a woman in sight), or overt references to our current political climate. As adapted from Rosemary Sutcliffe’s novel, The Eagle of the Ninth, this film is a pretty straight-ahead tale of honor, loyalty and friendship. In between, the team of director Kevin MacDonald, screenwriter Jeremy Brock, and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle offer up some lovely vistas over misty Scottish glens, occasionally hokey dialog, and a couple of decent sword fights.
The trouble is that there isn’t enough of any of these three to make The Eagle truly remarkable, even though this filmmaking trio worked magic together on the terrificLast King of Scotland. The film starts at a lively pace with realistic sets and costumes and a well-choreographed battle between the Roman cohort in Marcus’ command and a group of invaders. (Yes, I know that it was technically their land first. See my previous comments about politics.) Marcus proves himself a brave soldier–while Tatum proves himself a pretty hunky imitator of one–but his injuries mean he ends up having to take it easy for the next hour or so of the movie.
That means there isn’t a legitimate battle scene to rival those exciting first 20 minutes until the last 20 minutes arrive. The hour in the middle is filled with the aforementioned clumsy dialog, including the groan-inducing nugget, “When I ran away from your father, I ran away from myself.” In the absence of action, I felt compelled to wonder what it all meant. Is it honorable for Marcus to venture into the northern lands to retrieve the eagle and restore his family honor or just haughty and stupid? Would Esca be right to double-cross him or would it only serve to prove what the Romans already think of the “savages”? Do I see parallels between this world and our own quagmire in the Middle East? And who is the Seal prince cutie under all that blue paint? I only figured out the answer to the last question: Tahar Rahim of last year’s A Prophet.
Since The Eagle clearly never intends to address those other issues, it would have done better to leave me no time to think about them. I wish that it had shown a better development of Marcus and Esca’s friendship or been murkier about Esca’s loyalties. On their journey, the two share some raw rat meat but never so much as a laugh or a personal anecdote. As it stands, I was neither surprised by Esca’s continued faithfulness to Marcus nor entirely convinced by it. Stronger character development would have made an interesting point about the true meaning of honor, no politics required.
Some more fighting would have also been cool. The shield-hoisting, synchronous-moving phalanx variety, not the too-tightly shot stuff the film delivers in its intermittent hand-to-hand skirmishes. I couldn’t figure out why MacDonald insisted on shooting close-ups of his lead actors’ faces in these action scenes. As hulking a man as Channing Tatum is, I’m sure he can swing a sword properly. And he deserves to be shot from farther out than the shoulders up. His body, after all, is the sum total of the square-jawed, squinty-eyed giant’s admittedly mesmerizing appeal.
Besides, what’s a sword-and-sandals movie if you can’t see either?
WATCH THE OFFICIAL TRAILER THE EAGLE (2011) .from here
0 comments:
Post a Comment