The Stolen Eagle

Firstly, I have no interest in accents or historical accuracy.

The aspect of Rome that stood out the most were the sets. The art direction and attention to detail are magnificent.

While that is probably a bad thing; I have always respected television shows that feel they need to put money into sets and detail.

Judging by the pilot, the story that will run throughout the duration of the series will be the power struggle between Gaius Julius Caesar, and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.

Rome is governed equally between these two men. Ceaser has been away at war in Gaul for eight years and has gained popularity due to his success. Pompeius is threatened and jealous and wishes to throw Ceaser out of government. The struggle begins.

My biggest problem with the pilot is the dialogue. I found it extremely amateur, many lines were dull or cringe worthy.

However the pilot kept my attention and I will give Rome a few more episodes to improve.

This is the episode and series that first brought HBO to my attention and won my admiration. 'Rome' is an absolute triumph of television.

If like me, you are a Roman history fanatic, you will find no other movie, TV or visual representation of any kind that even comes close to equaling the visual splendor, historical accuracy, and entertainment magnificence of HBO's 'Rome'. And this is my attempt to restrain my praise. I've watched and re-watched this entire series at least 5 times and intend to keep watching. I need my 'Rome' fix at least once per year.

But don't for a second think that the story holds less promise than the visual perfection. You cannot get a richer, more captivating true story than that of the life of Julius Caesar. The script writers went a step further and wove in the characters of Vorenus and Titus Pullo around whom the historical context revolves. And they are superb characters who, while fictionalized, are still based on real individuals mentioned in the writings of Caesar himself. The opening battle scene with Vorenus and Pullo on the front line mirrors quite closely what Caesar wrote about them in 'The Gallic War'.

I watched this first episode just after I had watched four episodes of the BBC docu-fiction series about the Roman empire in general. I do not think it is easy to make a comparison since the BBC series tries to highlight certain important personalities and eras of the Western Roman world through out its history while Rome develops the personal history of a certain cast of characters during the final years of the Republic just before the emergence of the Principate. The opening titles of the series is impressive as well as character development which tries to have a "real" flavour.And one important detail Rome is much more sexually explicit than the BBC series which means that it will fare better commercially.

The sets look cheap akin to a back lot with minimal use of 'location' but the worst thing is the porn. Give 'Caligula' a run based on the first 20 minutes I viewed before I shut it down. The Brits usually give a good performance but when they imitate Romans they're epecially driven to jump from som,e stage to their moment on screen. It doesn't work and that's why they shove in the porn. The guy who played Caesar was especially 'sour' and I wouldn't think he could ride a horse if his life depended on it - Caesar did it's how he took down Vercingetorix.

If you love depravity then watch it - if you want to be engaged watch the original 'Spartacus'...this is a waste.

What Deadwood did for the Western, Rome was supposed to do for the epics: revisit the genre and reveal the murkier side big movies like Spartacus had only hinted at. The most obvious comparison would be Gladiator, arguably the only swords-and-sandals flick to show ancient Rome as it really was: a decadent city, filled with whores, brutes and bloodshed. HBO's serialization of the birth of the Roman Empire (the show was canceled after depicting the battle that led to the downfall of the Republic) aimed to tell this gory tale in an intelligent, yet entertaining way, and for the most part it succeeded admirably, despite some gratuitous excess in the first few episodes, especially the opening one.

Then again, what was to be expected when The Stolen Eagle deals with the final stages of the Gallic Wars, the conflict that brought Julius Caesar (Ciaràn Hinds) to everlasting fame? The episode begins with the concluding battle between Romans and Gauls, one that gives Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) one more triumph to brag about when he returns home and sends the brutal, vulgar Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) to prison for insubordination. On the flip-side, Caesar learns his only daughter, Julia, died in childbirth, a fact that gets even worse considering her husband was Pompey (Kenneth Cranham), Caesar's political ally and friend, not to mention the only man capable of preventing the Senate from declaring the Roman conqueror a public enemy. The bad air generated by this set of events is already being felt in the great city, as Caesar's niece Atia (Polly Walker) already thinks of making new influential friends. When she isn't busy having sex with as many men as possible, that is.

It is that last element that caused controversy when Rome originally aired on BBC, alongside a few excessively violent bits. Not that flesh and blood are always bad: it just depends on how they are used within the series. In the case of HBO masterworks like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Deadwood, explicit sex and graphic blood-letting serve the story and add dramatic poignancy, whereas in Sex and the City, well… it's just funny. In the first episode of Rome, however, it is hard to justify the full frontal nude scenes of Polly Walker, other wise terrific in her vicious portrayal of Atia, since they do nothing at all to move the story forward or establish her character (okay, maybe they are necessary in order to prove she is a slut, but there are better ways to achieve that goal). As for the violence, a similar remark is needed for the utterly gratuitous close-up of a decapitated bull, with blood flowing freely all over a young girl's body: that sequence has no narrative relevance at all, and constitutes nothing more than gore for its own sake. It also robs the key players of screen time they so richly deserve, especially Hinds, whose wounded yet powerful take on Caesar is the best celluloid incarnation of the character so far, and James Purefoy, gleefully malevolent as the scheming Mark Antony. McKidd and Stevenson make a convincing leading duo as well, although the first show doesn't give them many chances to interact properly.

Thankfully, the not-so-perfect storytelling in this debut hour is compensated by state-of-the-art visuals: the marvelous production design (all actual sets, based in Cinecittà, a famous studio located, fittingly enough, just outside Rome) and gorgeous costumes make the seductive looks of Gladiator seem amateurish, fully justifying the show's huge budget (some reports indicate it is the most expensive series ever produced as of 2007). With several feasts for the eye and an intriguing story to stimulate the mind, Rome is flawed (at least in the first half of the season) but also good enough to ensure viewers won't be annoyed, assuming the overblown carnage of early episodes doesn't strike them too hard in the gut.