Eagle vs the Culture Vulture

Post-Oscars, it's slim pickings on the film front. So in lieu of anything improving, I decided to opt instead for popcorny trash. Even in that genre, there's not much on offer, unless you fancy whatever new Jason Statham vehicle is approaching at speed. So, The Eagle it was. It's been a good while since Gladiator mopped up both at the box office and at the Oscars, so it's clearly time for someone to have another crack at the sword 'n' sandals side of things.

You don't need much in the way of a script, just men grunting in a meaningful manner about 'honour' before smacking lots of chaps about the chops with a heavy-duty sword. Costumes: sack with a hole for your neck, plus a belt. Breastplate if you're lucky, lace-up sandals if you're a posh officer type. Then you need some Brit thesps who want to get paid enough to put their kids through school - it's this or another Alien film. Least with this one, you don't have to spend four months in Prague, doubling as an inhospitable planet, and getting covered in acidic gunk every day. A villain is necessary - preferably a Brit; they do camp menace so well! You'll also require a clutch of honourable slaves and plenty of slow-mo blood spraying around.

Looking good so far for The Eagle - your hero is a man looking to avenge his father's death. 'What made you want to come to Britain?' he's asked, early on. He chokes back the answer, 'I. fancied checking out some National Trust properties and shitter weather than I have at home', and opts for a meaningful glower. Perhaps he's wondering why people keep referring to it as 'Britain', when surely at the time it would've been known as 'England', 'Wales' and 'That big bit up the top where all the mad ginger bastards live'. Buff Hero Roman is played by a young man who is improbably named Channing Tatum. He looks like someone cross-bred Josh Hartnett with Jamie Rednapp. He has mastered the art of serious acting - in a kind of Joey Tribiani way. He spends most of the film squinting at the horizon and then frowning, or frowning, then squinting into the middle distance. Then talking some more about the honour of Rome and how much he ruddy loves being a soldier.

Sadly, after being really very brave, he ends up with a dodgy leg, which, much like being a Premiership footballer, means your career is knackered. Even if one of your minions has travelled hundreds of leagues to give you an engraved 'thanks for being so brave' consolation bangle. What's a guy to do? He clearly can't hang out with his unfeasibly chirpy uncle for the rest of his days (Donald Sutherland, taking the Oliver Reed role). Donald is carrying on where he left off after Pride and Prejudice: randomly turning up in 'England', boasting a full LA accent and teeth that could light up all of Northumberland and grinning broadly, no matter what bit of ropey expositionary dialogue he's been given to deliver.

Josh Rednapp needs a sidekick in order to break out, so goes to a Gladiator-style bust up in the local town and saves a slave. Bingo! Slave sidekick, who owes our hero his life. He's not black (Gladiator, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves), but he's sort of foreign. Well, he's from the North. Somewhere. Jamie Bell, for it is he, doesn't seem that sure where he's supposed to call 'home' - his accent takes a tour of the Scottish Highlands, via Newcastle, with possibly a bit of slaving having been done in a garrison in Colchester. He's further hindered by being called 'Esca', which makes him sound like either a Spanish brand of panty liners, or a cleaning product that's had to be rebranded so it can be sold into the pan-European market. Welcome to the new name for Daz! Anyway, he speaks whatever lingo those north of Hadrian's Wall do, so despite the fact he only looks sixteen, and can't really do frowning unless he's got his mouth open at the same time, he's got the sidekick gig. Great, let's go and hunt for a McGuffin! I mean a totally meaningful bit of lost Roman military hardware.

The film then takes all the dullest bits from Lord of the Rings - lots of trotting about on horses, camping in the rain, sitting round the fire, just the two of you, being manly. They also do the classic Hobbit 'hiding under a riverbank to fox the bad guys' manoeuvre and one of them has a Gandalf-inspired white steed.

Daz Pantyliner looks like he might pull a fast one when the pair get captured by Mohican-topped 'seal people', who, whilst savage (they're all coated in a fine layer of dried mud and accessorised with bone necklaces), at least seem to have mastered sleeves, which no-one else has. Though Josh has a lovely pair of very thick knitted cream socks, whilst Daz, as his name suggests, sports impressively clean long johns/jodhpurs throughout. 'I thought I'd lost you', croaks Josh, when Daz does an English Patient and returns from a seemingly doomed help-gathering mission, with a bunch of previously-presumed-dead-twenty-years-ago Roman centurions. They've come straight from playing dwarves in Lord of the Rings, and are led by Mark Strong, buried under a stringy beard/hair combo and trying to fit in with the natives by sporting an American accent, like all the other Romans.

There is another big punch-up and Josh 'n' Daz return to impress a bunch of stuffy, white-haired, hammam-togaed blokes (all pitching for the Derek Jacobi role) with their big, shiny gold eagle. 'What next?' enquires Daz, standing shoulder to shoulder with Josh, now, of course a slave no more, and beaming like a maniac. 'You decide', twinkles Josh, raising the ghastly prospect of a sequel - possibly a new genre of 'Ro-bros' (Roman Bromance). They just stop short of giving each other a high five. Or a 'High V', as I suppose it would be, if one were to make a late bid for authenticity.