Let the Eagle Soar

Somber tone sets the pace for the newest Roman saga
 by Morgan P Salvo

Well we’ve had Russell Crowe, Brad Pitt and Colin Farrell don the Ancient Roman attire as they march sandal first with sword in hand but now we add…Channing Tatum? Turns out it’s not such a bad call since there is little dialogue to screw up as he spends most of his time brooding and being really pensive. This must be survival month at the movies because beyond honor and freedom at the core of this movie is, you guessed it, survival. This is another installment of will they or won’t they?

Setting an ominous tone from the beginning we soon become aware that we are not in Hollywood mainstream gladiator territory. The Eagle, directed by Academy Award-winning Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland) re-teams with screenwriter Jeremy Brock for this historical epic set in second century Britain. In 135 A.D Roman-ruled Britain, a young Roman soldier Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) endeavors to honor his father's memory by finding his lost legion's golden emblem, the treasured Eagle. It’s been 15 years since the Ninth Legion went missing in the mountains of Scotland. Marcus’ father was the commander of the Ninth and by discovering what fate befell the missing 5,000 men he could restore his failing reputation. Aquila's only traveling companion is his British slave, Esca (Jamie Bell). Along the way they confront the savage tribes of the land.
Overly protective of his men (“Better angry than dead”) Marcus is careful not to make the mistakes his father made. Not knowing if Dad’s actions were of cowardice or bravery Marcus is anguished and at battle within to prove himself. There is an aura of despondency in all his actions.
Tatum wears the raging inner turmoil on his sleeve. I can’t tell if Bell looks angry to be a slave or to play one. Donald Sutherland is the kindly uncle looking like Grizzly Adams in a man-robe. Mark Strong pops up yet not as a villain. And Tahar Rahim (A Prophet) sporting a Mohawk and what looks like a muskrat skull on his head, is unrecognizable as the leader of an ashen grey covered tribe that resembles an evil Navi race. Oddly everyone speaks their own voice so we have no fake British accents flailing about.

MacDonald is not interested in gore. The brutal fight scenes are all swords swooshing, action cuts, hacking and bashing but not a trickle of blood. There’s enough sound and choreography to steer away from the missing bloodshed. The editing allows the more gruesome kills executed off camera showing the facial expressions of the killer and/or onlookers. Judging by the 15 minutes of credits it seems somebody could’ve splurged for some squibs. The stand off between the muskrat-skull wearing tribe and the Romans of the missing 5,000 (looking like a washed up rock band revival) is bittersweet in its finale… the combat scenes just seem to end with an artsy blackout and then reveal the carnage.

The realistic and somber approach to this flick makes it watchable. But the time code here is off: setting up scenes that feel unnecessary and then cutting to an end result without an explanation of how and why people got there. Shot in Hungary and Scotland with impressive scenery and really cool music I wonder why the filmmakers choose this simplistic story to bring out such impressive cinematic guns. The Eagle is an epic battle movie with a message of honor and trust too bad it ends with a highly unnecessary upbeat last scene.
I kept expecting a more Fellini or Pier Paolo Pasolini surrealistic approach to pop up yet Eagle feels more like early Werner Herzog or Terrence Malick keeping the tone gritty with a desperation and futility expressed throughout.
The Eagle
Starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, Donald Sutherland, Mark Strong, Tahar Rahim
Directed By Kevin McDonald
PG-13
2 ¾ stars

Throw This Gaping Hole a Lifeline

Drowning in Stupidity Sanctum Creates its own Watery Grave
By Morgan P Salvo


Two things are really not working for me anymore: “Based on true facts” and “Shot in real 3-D”. Just the mere fact that James Cameron produced Sanctum, the 3-D cinema magic should deliver. It doesn’t. I know I’m not known for being lavish with my praise, but this truly is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.
The water-soaked plot involves an underwater cave diving team on an expedition to explore New Guinea's Esa-ala Caves, one of the least accessible cave systems in the world. When a cyclone causes a flash flood to cut off their exit, they are caught in a life-or-death situation. With supplies dwindling, the divers must navigate a treacherous labyrinth to find a new escape route or die in the process.
Sounds promising right? What could have been a nice harrowing survival tale instead give us yet another father son reconciliation account through cathartic events, done poorly. Setting us up with transparencies like…Will the pouty-boy-man and gruff-strict-dad reconcile their differences? Will their survival tactics intertwine? Will they find out something they never knew about each other and themselves? Will it dig as deep as the cave they so expertly plunder through? Will the duo bond like no other has before them? Will there be painful decisions made? Will domestic squabbles take on the mentality of the father-son-oedipal complex pleasing each other till it hurts? Gimme a break.
From the first line of dialogue Sanctum feels forced and phony. The screenplay seems like it was taken from a joke book of clichés. The acting is atrocious throughout. This Aussie wannabe action yarn comes off like a lame version of The Descent without the cool monsters.
Carl Ioan Gruffudd (Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four) annoys us instantly with his take on his role, exposing a fake personality that only lame actors can convey. Richard Roxburgh(Moulin Rouge) as Frank has the juiciest role but well marinated in sea water no original lines. Dan Wyllie’s George has a moment or two, climber Victoria (Alice Parkinson) is all wisecrack and worry (never a good combo) and Rhys Wakefield’s estranged 17-year old son, Josh, is all cry baby with unbelievable mood swings that are conveyed with a lot of “NO… NO… NO’s!”
The enthusiastic talks that emanate from all the characters takes on a children’s Discovery Channel approach .Wretched dialogue to invent drama is inserted to establish a “story” that went on behind cave doors, relying heavily on all the conventions of unoriginal, over-used catch phrases stolen from countless other bad movies. If divers and underwater explorers turned first time writers Andrew Wigh, John Garvint are going to call it “based on true facts” then they owe it to us to make up something good and not this terribly generic.
The claustrophobic Sanctum’s 3-D tries it’s hardest to enthrall, as camera and character squiggle through tiny tunnels. There was no need for 3-D effect –we’re right there with them without having to see pockmarked rocks in the foreground. We’re constantly barraged with sweeping emotional stirring music to invoke the bosom to swell. The music and redundant dialogue never fills the cave’s empty space only the water pouring is plugs the gaps.
Director Alister Grierson was obviously under Producer Cameron’s thumb trying to invoke an Abbyss feel but comes off more like Cameron’s Piranha Part Two: The Spawning without the demon fish or any imaginative ideas.
Everything is so beyond predictable that this movie could make one feel down right clairvoyant. When Frank teaches Josh Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan poem it just about threw me out of the theatre. My feet were poised to bolt. Believe me if this one doesn’t make number one on my worst top ten list next year it will be a miracle.
Just recently a more effective survival movie came out (127 hrs) and one guy and rock were more intense and entertaining than this entire expedition and a cave. Sanctum’s litany of bad calls is endless. Let’s just call it a fiasco and be done with it —I’d rather watch my crunchy cereal flakes get soggy than this watered down disaster. I came out of the theater gasping for fresh air after being submerged in this atrocity for 1hr and 43 minutes. Oh… what a few cool monsters at the bottom could’ve done for this flick. Sanctum is all wet

SANCTUM
Starring Richard Roxburgh, Rhys Wakefield, Ioan Gruffudd, Alice Parkinson, Dan Wyllie
Directed by Alister Grierson
¼ star


(Only because I like underwater footage)

The Devil Made Him Do It

Anthony Hopkins Hams it up amidst looming dormancy while Rites of passage be damned... this flick goes nowhere.


It’s not a good sign when an exorcist movie is rated PG-13…you know the lack of blood and cursing will not suffice for any horror aficionado especially in this overworked genre.
And such is the case with The Rite, a demonic Anthony Hopkins vehicle where once again he gets to strut his stuff by glinting his eyes, rattling off cantankerous innuendoes and sinister wise-cracks all the while under heavy demon make-up and CGI veins popping out of his skin. Think Hannibal Lecter even more possessed.
"Based on true events” from a book by Matt Baglio which documents the initiation of Reverend Gary Thomas of Los Altos, Calif. as an exorcist, this flick treads on thin demonic ice all the way. The Rite is ridiculous from start to finish. The tired old conventions that set this kind of movie up rear their ugly heads immediately with a back story of a father (Rutger Hauer)-son (Colin O’Donoghue) funeral home team that tries to be creepy but is only dull. Bad horror movie set up lines abound, like, “We live with dead people in our house, how much worse can it get?” Son Michael goes off to become a priest but has tons of misgivings and is finally sent to Rome to take an exorcism 101 class because a priest (Toby Jones) sees something in the young lad and utters the stereotypical line, “two months in Rome – how bad can that be?” Classmate Alice Braga sees something in the wannabe troubled priest and flirts with him a lot. Then the teacher Father Xavier (Ciarán Hinds) sees something meaningful and sends him off to play hooky with Father Lucas (Hopkins), a bonafide practicing exorcist and then Lucas sees something like himself in the doubting atheist. Everyone sees it but Michael himself…what a shock. So we get the requisite skepticism followed by tons of proof that the devil exists and lives inside of people. The rest of the movie is in exorcist contortion land while mentor and mentee conduct a slew of the devil-casting-out rituals.
Lucas reminds us early that there is no spewing green pea soup and there are no spinning heads. Yet we are treated to a young pregnant woman’s possession with the gratuitous neck cracking, convulsing, drooling and body twisting acrobatics we have been so exposed to in these kinds of flicks. Michael still is struggling with logic versus faith but there’s nothing like coughing up bloody nails (just a hunch but I’m guessing from Jesus’ cross) to convert an atheist non believer, but oh wait that still doesn’t do it. Until Lucas himself becomes possessed does Mike have a day of reckoning, transforming into an almighty God-accepting-avenger-priest. This movie comes full circle and forms a perfect cheese-ball.
O'Donoghue’s weird acting makes Michael’s ambivalence towards religion and then science never believable. Braga just smirks and then looks bewildered when scared. The only fun is watching Hopkins do what we all know he is capable of: hamming it up. Best scene is when he smacks a kid. Mikael Hafstrom (1408, Derailed) has a way of establishing nice images but the vague emoting, plugged in dialogue, flashbacks, jolt scare tactics and dream sequences still made it feel like a slow-paced one act play about nothing. Rite is a boringly pedestrian movie with little shocks echoing such flicks as the bad Omen sequels or the recent Unborn. It’s a shame…all that devil and nowhere original to go. Hollywood is churning out so much junk in this department that it’s safe to say anything with “the” in its title is sure to suck. I really wanted to be nice to this movie but it clearly had no intention of letting me. What gives them the rite?


The Rite
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Colin O'Donoghue, Alice Braga, Ciarán Hinds
Directed by: Mikael Hafstrom
Rated PG-13
 1 ½ stars