The Eagle is the latest in a long line of movies that deals with the Roman Empire. This movie revolves around the disappearance of the ninth legion along with the eagle that they carried into battle with them. Fast forward twenty years and the son of the standard bearer has taken a post in Britain so that he can hopefully be able to go and find out what happened to the legion and hopefully to recover the eagle and return the honor back to his family's name. The Eagle wasn't overly ambitious, which worked for this movie, it is exactly what I expect from a story of friendship and adventure. While I went in expecting a ten minute introduction educating us on the socio-political climate of Roman occupied Britain, I was pleasantly surprised with the character focused introduction. Surprisingly, I did not see this movie movie for historical accuracy, or to be preached to about the triumphs of the human spirit. It is a simple story, but epic with its presentation.
Channing Tatum stars as Marcus, a soldier in the Roman army who asks for a post in Britain so he can work to restore the honor of his family. This is definitely Tatum's best work, he plays a stoic Roman with great conviction. The audience is able to know that while he is a good soldier at the same time he has an inner battle with his feelings of disgrace because of his family name. With this we see him as a great leader to the soldiers, but not untouchable as he is injured in a battle early on in the movie. Jamie Bell in the role of Esca the servant to Marcus after his life is saved by Marcus. Where on the journey Marcus is the stoic one, Esca is the loose cannon that one never knows what he may do once past Hadrian's wall. Bell plays this loose cannon ability perfectly. Bell plays perfectly on the knowledge the audience is given concerning the reasons behind why Esca has a hatred for Marcus, with this throughout the movie it gives the audience a sense of distrust for Esca that we expect throughout the journey for him to betray Marcus. Although a small role Donald Sutherland gives some heart to the movie playing the uncle to Marcus. He is able to give this heart as he is a strong father figure to Marcus.While it may have been nice to see Sutherland on screen more, at the same time it may have been his lack of screen time that made his role so full of heart those moments when he is on-screen.
A great aspect of this movie was that of using very little CGI, which kept a very nice human element throughout. A lot of times in battle movies it makes it easy to go with CGI overkill in your battle scenes, instead with such limited CGI we see a lot more battle interaction in a one on one aspect. Using hand cameras for the action which has become the new popular choice by directors in action movies, we get this shay camera that gives us in the audience the feeling of being right in the middle of the action. At times the shaky camera effect can be annoying and distracting, in The Eagle it made me be on the edge of my seat because I felt I needed to keep my head on a swivel just to be ready for someone attacking me from behind or the side if I am not prepared. As well as ready to see what comes next on screen.
The attention to detail in this movie is something that can easily be overlooked in movies that are set centuries in the past. On such an instance of this is Marcus is having dinner with his uncle and they eat with candlelight, and with the candles they room is still fairly dim and really makes you feel like you are back in a time before electricity. A lot of movies try to make a viewer believe that a few candles can fully light a room with only a few candles. Another aspect used in this movie that is not always used in films is the Scots spoke in a Gaelic tongue every time they talk on the screen. A lot of movies that use a foreign language will use a line two in the foreign language and then either give an excuse as to them being able to speak English or just switch with no explanation.
The Eagle ends up being a fun movie that exceeded expectations. While this movie is far from being epic like Gladiator, it uses its own merits to be simple yet epic. With admirable acting that goes out and gets the job done. The attention to detail at different points is really what helped exceed the expectations I had for The Eagle. I am giving The Eagle three buckets of popcorn out of five. The Eagle is well worth going out and renting for an enjoyable movie night.
-The Movie Man
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