The Eagle (2011)

It happened that this week I saw "The Eagle", movie directed by the same guy that did the 2009 version of "State of Play" which I was almost bashing :) last week. I didn't pay much attention to the directing part then because the script was the most catastrophic part of the movie. So I didn't knew who is Kevin Macdonald, and what he had done before. Consequently I couldn't link him with "The Eagle" before I've actually watched the movie. Probably if I would have made the connection between the two before I would have skipped it, especially considering that IMDb ranks it lower than other pretty similar flick - "Centurion" - about which I wrote ( bad stuff :) ) something like a few months ago. Well, fortunately, I didn't "ditched" the movie ... :) which is good, considering that lately I don't have time to see enough stuff getting quite hard to be lucky enough to get over something really deserving a blog entry.

I was telling above something about being quite close to "Centurion". The story there was revolving arounf the IX-th Roman Legion, which went missing in action somewhere around year 100 in Britain, and about whose fate there isn't a very clear theory up until today, the general opinion being that it was massacred by the local tribes. What we were presented with in "Centurion" was exactly this story + the fate of a few Romans who managed to flee from the enemy. All that was wrapped in a hardly believable context, quite chaotic and filled with bloodshed just to move your attention away from the huge script holes. "The Eagle" has its action set some years after "Centurion", and although it doesn't have any direct connection with the other movie, it could be regarded as a sequel. The son of the commander of the IX-th Legion asks to be placed in charge of a fort in Britain, with the personal purpose of regaining the honor lost by his family when his father didn't return from battle and the legion's Roman eagle disappeared along him. I know, the idea/story sounds quite .. cheesy, let's say, and unfortunately it really is in some parts of the movie, especially in the cliche filled final. But, leaving apart the main idea = to get the glory back by finding in the savage enemy territory a big bird on a stick, (I see it exactly like this, no matter how important could be considered as a symbol), the stuff that complements this main action line - from the narrative part - the context, the way the story advances, up to the movie making - directing, cinematography, editing, etc , really worth the time spent watching.

I won't get into more detail with the story than I already did (the trailer will give you a bit more and I think it's enough). The movie is based on a book, and probably that's the reason it's a bit more complex like a simple run session between barbarian hordes as we had in "Centurion". A bit more complex doesn't mean however very complex, and that's exactly why I started today's entry referring to directing. Because that's the part that raises the movie level (quite a lot). It somehow manages to be likable as final result despite all the "crazy quest for glory" that probably impresses up to 12-15 years old but not much more after, despite the lack of any romance subplot, and despite the predictability of the story. I could take them and give a detailed point of view on each about how the directing manages to mask the problem (although some are visible from time to time, and unfortunately quite a lot in the final part, which makes the overall impression to drop a bit), but if I'm starting to explain more I'm afraid I won't finish soon enough and it will be a long & boring entry :) What I would like to say more related to directing is that after I've seen "The Eagle" I also found out that the same Kevin Macdonald also directed "The Last King of Scotland", movie that I can definitely recommend for anybody who didn't see it already, and for who did .. for sure "The Eagle" it's not the same caliber, but you can see some commonalities in the directing.

I'll end with a couple of words about the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). The movie is very nicely shot, you get too see pretty much everything - from action scenes shot in "kinetic camera" decent enough for how much I like the technique :), open scenes, flashbacks, slow motion, etc. What I liked the most was the chromatic which is relatively warm. This is opposite to the one in "Centurion" for instance, which is cold, making that all the excessive violence to be even better perceived there. In "The Eagle" I could actually say that it's a bit too "Disney" :) on that = besides the fact that the harsh scene are quite censored, the color gives an air of calm to top it. Thing that doesn't put you asleep (which, for me at least, happens in other similar cases like "The Last of the Mohicans" ) , and it's because you still have enough action to keep you awake. And also in some scenes "the contrast", figuratively speaking, between the level of suspense/tension and the calm of the color is big enough to give an effect of .. don't know .. something like what you feel when you see in a sunny summer day that dark clouds are gathering and the light starts fading into a yellowish pale that is as much warm as storm predicting :)

Rating: 4 out of 5