So we saw “The Eagle” yesterday, which is about the love affair between Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell in Roman England..
I mean, that isn’t what they say it’s about, but if there was one more longing stare between them it would have gotten an R rating. And there were no women in the movie, except for village lasses missing teeth (and not one woman had a line in English / Roman).
What was odd though, were the accents. Normally when one hears a Roman in a movie or TV he has a British English accent (years of “I Claudius” reruns have conditioned us to expect Romans to speak in British accents). So it was jarring at first to hear all the Romans speak with flat American accents – even some American colloquialisms.
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Then, much later, Jamie Bell is introduced as a “Briton” slave. Now of course, Jamie doesn't like Channing, but Channing did save his life - so he pledges his life to Channing and grows to respect the lovable American Oaf with a heart of gold and oh baby those lips.
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Here is Jamie Bell in a completely NOT-homoerotic introductory scene.
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They give Jamie plenty of "come hither" totally non-gay looks.
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He speaks fluent “Roman” (which – yes I know is Latin in real life, but is American English in this movie) but with a British Accent – so it’s how to tell the British Romans from the American Romans. That or they didn’t’ want to risk Channing Tatum trying to speak with a British accent (although – after seeing Kevin “Prince of Thieves” Costner on again – off again accent – could it really be worse).
The actually “Britons” of “The Eagle” were either hairy / ugly Viking left-overs or overly tatted renegades drifted in from a Mad Max movie, or white people with mud-war paint and the left over “ogga bogga” costumes from King Kong. They lived in the North of Scotland and wore African lion cloths. Ooookayyyyy?
And their accents? Well they all spoke some sort of bizarre made up language with sub-titles (maybe it was Celtic, but it did NOT sound like Enya!). If it WAS Celtic, then I now know that “Na-Na” means “No” in Celtic and “ruhh-me” means “Roman”, which is – you know – great if I am at a Cornish Cannibal dinner and don’t want seconds, “Na-na ruhh-me”