THE EAGLE - Job. Done.

I really enjoyed THE EAGLE. I loved it in the same way that I love commanding my Roman cohort to form the Testudo against a bunch of screaming German women and wolf-skin wearing savages in Rome Total War. It's a guilty pleasure that works for anyone who ever loved sword-and-sandal epics  or was forced to do a lot of class-civ. as a kid. And let's be honest, "the ninth legion" is a phrase that, for people educated in a certain time and place*, resonates strongly. Raised by Pompey to fight in Spain, the Legio Nona Hispana were definitely massacred by Boudica's Iceni in AD 60's Roman Britain, and were rumoured to have vanished north of Hadrian's Wall in AD 120, but may well have been finally defeated by the Teutons....Whatever happened, they represent the inability of Mighty Rome to hold off the Native Horde - a story that resonates today as we see the superior forces of our modern superpower struggling to fight scrappy insurgents in the Middle East. And this is the parallel that Scottish director Andrew MacDonald and screenwriter Jeremy Brock (THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) bring to this adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's popular children's historical adventure, "The Eagle of the Ninth", by giving the Romans American accents and by confronting them with the motives of the "insurgents".

As in the novel, the story is simple and compelling. Young Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum) is the son of the disgraced Roman general whose legion was massacred by the northern British tribes. Worse still, those tribes captured the legion's Eagle - its symbol of authority and good fortune. Desperate to restore his family's honour, Aquila deliberately seeks a posting to Hadrian's Wall, and when injured defending his men, he journeys north of the border to find the Eagle without the sanction of Rome. We have, then, the Stakes. But the heart of the novel and the film is the relationship between Aquila and his slave-then-friend, Esca (Jamie Bell). Aquila's emotional arc takes him from viewing the Celts as savage insurgents of little honour and less integrity, to brave fighters defending their homeland against Rome's rape and pillage. The Seal People may do savage things - not least their "crown prince" as played by Tahar Rahim (UN PROPHET) but in death, when the war paint washes off, he is just a young man defending his tribe. So, by the end of his journey, while Aquila is still convinced of the idea of Rome, he can cock a snook at the Senate, and take the lead of a Freed Man (a ham-fisted scene admittedly.)

The resulting film is really well put together. Andrew MacDonald gives us all those little details of life in a Roman outpost that made the novel feel real and alive - we feel the armour chafe, we feel the adrenaline inside the Testudo, we hear the crowd cheer the gladiator. I loved Anthony Dod Mantle's photography - beautifully capturing the Scottish rural landscape and the fog of battle. This isn't Rome as glossy and glorious, but life in the trenches against an enemy that hates you. I was impressed by Channing Tatum as Aquila. He was convincing as the young soldier from the patrician family - born to lead - but also as the demoralised and depressed decommissioned soldier. He had genuine chemistry with Jamie Bell as Esca, and the way in which their understanding of each other develops is the back-bone of the film. Of course, Bell is the better actor, but the pairing didn't feel as imbalanced as I feared it might.

Is the film perfect? Of course not. As I said before, the final scene seemed a little cheesy. (Englishman) Mark Strong's American accent was so broad as to be distracting. We lost some emotional punch in the reduction of Cradoc (the guy on the chariot with knives sticking out of the axle) from a guide-turned-traitor to a generic screaming savage. And by axing Cottia (the love interest in the novel) but refusing to amp up the homo-erotic aspects of the story, MacDonald leaves the relationship between Aquila and Esca annoyingly ambiguous. Still, for all that, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed THE EAGLE. It was beautifully put together, solidly acted, and gave me a real feel for AD 100s Roman Britain. Job. Done.

THE EAGLE was released in February in Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada, the USA; Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Indonesia and Armenia. It was released in March in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the Philippines, Greece, Kuwait, Egypt, Denmark, Hungary, Malaysia, the UK, Portugal and Singapore. It was released last week in Lithuania and Spain. It opens on April 18th in Estonia and Norway; on April 28th in Croatia and on May 13th in Turkey. THE EAGLE is released on Region 1 DVD on June 21st. 

*And if you think I'm taking this too far, we learned Latin before we learned French; our school magazine was called Aquila (Eagle!), the debating society was the Quintilian Society; the school moto was Alta Petens....To say that I was conditioned as a child to be fascinated by Rome is an under-statement.

London Film Fest 2010 - Day 16 - Closing Night Gala - 127 HOURS

I don't do extreme sport. I don't really do common or garden sport. In the words of George Burns, 'I never go jogging: it makes me spill my martini.' If some fuckwit decides to go up a mountain or into a canyon on his own, without telling anyone about it, and then gets his arm trapped under a boulder, I basically have no sympathy. I mean, I'm glad said fuckwit survived, but do I really want to watch a dreary, dismal, against-all-odds movie where we basically spend 90 minutes watching a bloke drinking his own urine and then hacking off his arm with a blunt knife? No.

The triumph of writer-director Danny Boyle is that 127 HOURS is NOT that movie. He brings all the energy, visual style and bravura editing of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and TRAINSPOTTING to a story that could've been claustrophobic and grim. Better still, he had the faith to cast James Franco in the central role of real-life canyoneer Aron Ralston - an actor who is pretty, no doubt, but also very gifted and only now starting to get roles that show his potential.

The movie begins with a hi-energy, thumping sound-track from A.R.Rahman, and split screen footage of urban life - crowds of people and noise - trading floors and sports stadia. We see Franco's Ralston grab a map, some supplies, his cam-corder, jump in a car, music blaring, and head for the Canyon. This is clearly a guy full of energy, personable, but basically too busy to bother checking in. He's on the move - looking for that perfect outdoor sports high. And Boyle tells us all this without any dialogue - just some bravura editing and a really original approach to the material.

When we get to the Blue John Canyon, we see Aron charm the pants off two lost hikers, showing them the joy of dropping into an underground pool. Again, it's a brief episode but sketches in his character - good fun, witty, and a dare-devil. Tellingly, just as Aron ran out of the store not even turning to wave goodbye but impatient to move on to the next thing, he runs off from the girls, waving without turning. It's all about the next adventure.

Before we've even paused for breathe, Aron's dropped into a canyon, the boulder has crushed his arm, and he's realised, mid-swigging from his water-bottle, that he's "in deep doo-doo." And for the first time, the camera pans out from the ravine, out of the canyon, and there isn't any rock music on the sound-track. It's a great contrast to the first half hour of the flick.

What then follows is some superb acting from James Franco, as he portrays a man who veers from pragmatic, ingenious engineer to delusional, dehydrated hysteria. And Franco is matched point for point by Boyle's inventive use of the camera. From inside-the-water-bottle POV shots, to quick edits of Aron's delusional visions - the movie never loses pace or interest despite the constraints of basically shooting a guy in a ravine. (Admittedly, Boyle is helped by the fact that the real-life Ralston really did cam-cord himself, giving the screenwriters a neat device to break the silence and alter the POV.) In fact, far from being grim, 127 HOURS is often very funny indeed. And, most importantly, by making us enjoy Aron's company, and by making us see what he has to go home to, the movie makes us completely invest in his survival. As a result, when Aron finally has to break his arm and then cut through it to free himself, the audience gasped in horror at his pain, and cheered with joy when he finally escaped the trap. And when he finally saw a family in the distance, and the helicopter came for him, the feeling of relief and catharsis was palpable. I practically bounced out of the cinema on a natural high.

So, whether or not you typically like extreme-sport-survivor movies, you should definitely check out 127 HOURS. To use that most hackneyed of phrases, it really is a feel-good film of the best kind - a movie that earns its warm fuzzy glow by making you identify with its protagonist and taking you through what feels like authentic pain. The resulting film is full of energy, emotionally engaging, brilliantly acted, and technically imaginative. I think it's Danny Boyle's finest film to date, and certainly James Franco's best performance - combining the talent for comedy shown in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS with the ability to show real emotion seen in HOWL and MILK.

127 HOURS played Telluride and Toronto 2010. It opens in the US on November 5th 2010 and in the UK on January 7th 2011.