The Eagle
Kevin Macdonald
The story: Roman centurion Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum) sets out to recover the lost golden eagle standard of the ninth legion in order to redeem his family’s honour. He has only his slave Esca (Jamie Bell) to rely on when they venture to the north of Britain. Based on The Eagle Of The Ninth, the 1954 historical adventure novel by Rosemary Sutcliff.
Is it his masculine square jaw? Or is it his ability to project taciturn determination?
Channing Tatum, a military man in GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (2009) and a sergeant in the Army Special Forces in Dear John (2010), now straps on sandals and brandishes a sword as a Roman soldier in 2nd-century Britain.
The film begins promisingly enough. Director Kevin Macdonald paints a gritty and realistic-seeming portrait of life as a Roman in ancient times. There are scenes of combat at close quarters, of spectators at a fight between a gladiator and a slave and even of a physician carrying out an operation.
Things go south when Marcus heads north, beyond the edge of the known world to the Romans, for what sounds like Mission: Impossible circa 140 AD: He has to recover the titular symbol of Roman glory from fierce barbarian tribes all on his own.
Well, he does have his slave Esca (played by Jamie Bell), whom he relies on more and more as the latter speaks the native tongue and knows the lay of the land. Their uneasy relationship – master and slave, victor and vanquished – is explored a little and turned on its head but it is resolved a little too simplistically.
Macdonald’s documentarian background might be responsible for a long detour that does not sit well within the narrative.
When Marcus and Esca run into the Seal People, who are garbed in what can be thought of as tribal chic by way of Alexander McQueen; the study of the tribesmen’s habits and rituals that follows is almost anthropological.
Inexplicably, the ending of the film strikes a tone reminiscent of light-hearted buddy pictures that feels anachronistic and out of place.
The Eagle has landed, alas, with an ungraceful thud.
(ST)