Cast Channing Tatum, Jamie Bel
Director Kevin MacDonald
Rating PG15
Ah the buddy movie, bastion of male bonding... if only real friendships were as effortless and lasting as the ties forged by two individuals from different backgrounds, one a slave and one his master who come together to… er, hang on.
Perhaps it's better to think of The Eagle as an action flick, that just happens to include a couple of gents who, through the complex machinations of a Hollywood script, wind up taking turns owning each other in this otherwise realistic film about two warriors who take on a rather irritable tribe of Seal People, all to reclaim a gilded eagle. OK, maybe not that realistic.
Clearly they weren't familiar with The Maltese Falcon in ancient Rome, but like the faux fowl from Bogart's noir masterpiece, the meaning of the eagle, whether a symbol of imperialism and repression, or just the gleaming emblem of one man's family pride, is difficult to qualify. Put simply, it's hard to credit that either lump of metal is worth all the effort but in each film these metal birds foster great loss of life, and in The Eagle, several limbs.
Let's back up a tick though, The Eagle finds Marcus Aquila, played by Channing Tatum, in a state ruin after great feats of bravery on the battle field render him walking wounded, no longer fit to serve as a Roman centurion. Haunted by the disappearance of his father, along with his entire division and the golden feathered symbol of Rome from which the film takes its title, Marcus Aquila is obsessed with reconciling his father's death and restoring his family to glory. Almost accidentally, Marcus Aquila saves an English slave called Esca from the gladiator's blade, and the duo form a sort of Batman and Kunta Kinte partnership, as they set off to retrieve the eagle from the North of England.
Once outside the Roman protectorate, the tables are turned when the pair meets the North's most infamous tribe, the Seal People, who survive by getting a little crazy. In order to stay alive, Esca tells the Seal People that Marcus Aquila is actually his slave, which impresses them greatly. For all the bravado, sword play, manly honour, and outsized Hollywood action, it is the eventual friendship and bond between Esca and Marcus Aquila that is most ridiculous in The Eagle. Simply put, Esca, played by Jamie Bell, is too quick (as in ever) to forgive his former owner, especially when you consider that the end of the film returns him to Roman occupied England. Setting aside slavery, who would cosy up to an occupying army in your home land? Esca, it seems.
None of this really stops The Eagle from being a nice, almost two-hour distraction, and perhaps it's unfair to compare notions of slavery in Rome to the shameful history of slavery in the modern world. Ultimately The Eagle is a period action film, and in that vein it delivers the goods.
