The Eagle

The Eagle is a historical fiction about the disappearance of the 9th Legion of the Roman army. Historically true is that the legion advanced north of the Hadriatic wall in Britian, never to be seen again. The Eagle was an important symbol of the time and the legions would defend it to the end.

Despite his father being given up for dead, young Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum) requests to post in Britian near where his father would have been. Young Aquila proves himself a valuable warrior and eventually requests a mission to cross the wall and recover The Eagle, despite not knowing its whereabouts. He has the support of his uncle (Donald Sutherland) and is given a slave a British slave named Esca (Jamie Bell) to accompany him.

They set out for the north of Britian, an area now known as the Scottish Highlands and run into a rabble of people, where they fight and show their gallantry in hope of finding The Eagle. Does it still exist? If they do find it, can they actually return it to Rome?

The Eagle is Rated PG-13 for violence and some borish British acting and is just under 2 hours long.

Also staring in the movie are Mark Strong, Tahar Rahim, and Denis O'Hare - all extremely famous actors from the Highlands.

I kept my expectations for this movie low as I've seen some of Channing's other movies (Public Enemies, G.I. Joe, and The Dilemna). However, I actually enjoyed this movie. The storyline was interesting and with it spurred my interest in reading about the actual 9th Legion, some part of history that I was unaware.

Despite the lack of credible actors, I can give The Eagle 3.8 stars.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Any boy who grew up in the 1980's looked forward to the release of this movie. Others who can't stand to go to the movie theater looked forward to its later release on DVD.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra follows the evil scientist who creates the Cobra organization and his creation of Destro. In this presumably introduction to a series of movies, Cobra gets a hold of Nano weapons that destroy everything in their path the way you'd expect termites to destroy an old house - but really fast. Much of the action takes place in Paris and all of our favorite landmarks fall prey to this destructive weapon. It's up to the top secret Joe organization to seek out the members of Cobra and bring them down.

The movie has a star-studded cast including Dennis Quaid as General Hawk, Channing Tatum as Duke, Marlon Wayans (brother of the many other Wayans), Rachel Nichols (though without her traveling pants), Brendan Frasier, and Sienna Miller.

Now with such a heavy-weight cast, you would think that this would be one awesome movie. However, most of the movie focuses on computer-generated special effects that at times get a bit ridiculous. There's a ton of chase scenes and shooting scenes, though I probably should expect a lot of shooting scenes.

Directed by Stephen Sommers (which explains the appearance of Brendan Frasier - he's directed several of his movies) The Rise of Cobra is 2 hours long and is rated PG-13 for thousands of sequences of computer-animated violence, and as Netflix put it: strong sequences of violence and mayhem. I think that's about right.

I thought it quite humorous that the ladies in the movie were allowed to wear non-standard issue military suits that had zippers that only came up to their cleavage. And they also had on a good amount of makeup and long hair - characteristics of most of the women in our military.

I was not at all impressed with the movie and honestly do not look forward to the sequels. The plot was all over the place and it did not even resemble anything realistic. I was easily distracted during the movie by shiny things and was glad when it ended. I will have to say that I had a promotion code from Red Box allowing for a free rental, so I don't feel too bad. It didn't cost me anything. I give G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra 2 stars.