Director: Kevin Macdonald
Screenplay: Jeremy Brock, Rosemary Sutcliff (book)
Producer: Duncan Kenworthy
Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, Tahar Rahim, Denis O’Hare, Donald Sutherland
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running time: 114 min.

(3/5)

I love a good period epic and was excited at the prospect of another movie taking me down the road of adventure in search of the famed golden eagle which was lost by Rome’s Ninth Legion beyond Hadrian’s Wall and yet, when The Eagle opened theatrically earlier this year, I found myself uninterested in making the time to see it. It was one of these “If I happen to be there and it’s on I’ll watch it” deals and as it turned out, it came and went before I saw it.

Adapted from Rosemary Sutcliff’s hard to find novel, The Eagle tells of Marcus Aquila, a roman soldier whose father was at the helm of the 9th legion when it travelled past the wall never to be seen again. Now given command of a legion of his own, Aquila takes on a position far North in the British countryside hoping for the opportunity to clear his father’s tarnished name by finding the lost eagle. When some folks from Rome come wondering into town badmouthing his father, Marcus offers up a plan: let him and his slave Esca, a local he picked up after a bloody battle, travel into the highlands of Caledonia in search of the eagle; “Two men can hide where a legion can’t.”

And so the pair set off into the gorgeous wilderness beyond the wall. With Esca acting as a guide and interpreter, the two make their way north in search of the missing symbol until Marcus comes to suspect that Esca is simply leading him along on a wild goose chance through the highlands. The two have a confrontation that, I assume, is supposed to make us believe that they now trust each other unconditionally but either way, they seem to be making progress even finding a deserter from the missing legion. And then they encounter the Seal People which turns the situation in Esca’s favour.

Kevin Macdonald’s adaptation is interesting in that it doesn’t dedicate most of its energy on the search for the eagle but rather on the relationship between Marcus (Channing Tatum) and Esca (Jamie Bell) sadly, that also highlights the film’s major flaw. Though Bell takes charge and delivers a great performance, particularly through the film’s second half, Tatum is uninteresting and I didn’t fell any pull towards his quest for clearing his family name. There’s no emotion from him and I found it difficult to believe that he would elicit the sort of respect that Esca, as well as the other men who come into his charge, show him. For his part, Bell is nuanced in his performance and the shift from slave to master is an interesting one allowing him the opportunity to play both sides of the coin but Tatum is pretty much a good looking blank slate. Bromance fail. A truly surprising moment came at the realization, long after the final credits, that A Prophet‘s (review) Tahar Rahim is behind the makeup of the Seal Prince, one of the film’s strongest performances.

It doesn’t help that the script washes over much of the character development choosing instead to concentrate on the pair in the middle of an action sequence which, again, is a poor attempt to build respect between the characters or on showing great sweeping shots of the breathtaking landscape. I can appreciate being enamoured with the setting, the film was partially filmed in Wester Ross and at Loch Lomond, but it only eats up precious moments that could have been used for story development.

The most troublesome part of The Eagle is that it manages to truck along for nearly two hours and through a few great action sequences but it never manages to excite. There’s no urgency or heart pounding action and when the final scne unfolds, I was left thinking that the film was a great looking failure.

Though the lack of excitement puts me off a little, I did generally like the direction Macdonald takes the story. I love the various tribes the duo run into during their trip through the highlands, the idea that some soldiers made lives for themselves among the tribes people as well as the very look of the tribes, particularly the Seal People who populate much of the film’s second half.

The Eagle isn’t a heart pounding adventure but Macdonald’s approach to the story brings some interesting new aspects to a familiar story.

The Eagle is available on DVD and Blu-Ray on June 21st.

DVD Extras: Disc offers both the unrated and theatrical cuts of the film. Due to limited time I only watched the unrated cut of the film though Matt’s review of the theatrical version is pretty much in line with my thoughts on the version I saw yet I enjoyed it more (I’m more willing to forgive the faults for the bits I liked). Other extras include an alternate ending which I didn’t like any more than the original, a collection of delted scenes, a making of featurette titled “The Eagle: The Making of a Roman Epic” and perhaps most interestingly, Kevin Macdonald’s feature commentary which I really enjoyed for his coverage of the history and research that went into the making of the film.