1. Cinetim

   10

   A+
   With morals and plot devices that have been sadly lacking in cinema for the past ten years, The Eagle is a true epic.
   The movie takes place about ten years after the (real) event titled the "Lost Legion," where an entire legion of Roman troops in the post-Christianity era (117 AD) "vanished" after marching into unfriendly terrain in Northern England. Marcus Alquilas (now we are talking fiction) is the son of the Roman general who commanded the legion at the time of their demise(?); and he is distraught over the loss of his father, respect for his family, and the honor of Rome. Brave and intelligent (if nearly-mad with his obsession), Alquilas rises through the military ranks and is offered a variety of posts throughout the empire--not surprisingly, he chooses the northernmost fort to Hadrian's Wall, a barrier built to block off the upper half of England after the events of his father's command. After an injury, Alquilas needs an aid for recovering. His kindly uncle then gives him Esca, a slave Alquilas rescued from a lopsided gladiatorial combat. Recovering, Alquilas decides he will depart to the uncharted area on the other side of the wall. With Esca as his guide, Alquilas steadfastly pursues his goal of finding the Eagle of the Ninth, a treasured golden standard of the Lost Legion shaped like a chicken. No, actually it looks like an eagle.
   While I understand Focus Features' reasoning, it is sad that a movie with this merit and talent behind it got released with little fanfare in a time of year not associated with great films. No one who watched the trailer would know this is from Jeremy Brock and Kevin Macdonald, the writer-director team behind Oscar-nominee The Last King of Scotland. The book it is based on (Rosemary Suttcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth) is considered critically acclaimed classic. Channing Tatum (G.I. Joe, Dear John), a very underrated actor, plays Marcus, while BAFTA nominee Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, Hallam Foe) plays Esca. Also worth noting is that The Eagle''s cinematographer is Anthony Dod Mantle, who did the Oscar-winning work on Slumdog Millionaire.
   All the talent comes to good use. The movie is surprisingly old-fashioned--promoting honor and nationalism over liberty and personal-gain. It also deals with many dark issues without becoming unnecessarily grim. This is probably much due to the fact that the book is from the 50s; it is still impressive, though, that a 2011 film about ancient Rome managed not to be anarchistic. Even better, the movie has powerful morals which (while probably not discussable in a spoiler-free review) definitely make this better than most Academy Award-nominees.
   The movie's action scenes are slightly disjointed, probably due to the fact that the movie seems to really not want its PG-13 rating. Still, there are so many fight sequences (the movie keeps away from any tacked-on romantic subplots) I am sure that the action crowd will be pleased if they attend. Best of all, though, is the fact that this is not mere popcorn-fare: The Eagle is a moving epic in the vein of Ben Hur.
   Powerful morals, an exciting plot, and a well-crafted story make this cinematic experience exceptional.… Expand

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2. Panzerfaust101

   8

   I don't know about you, but im often bored of the formulaic samey slow motion action flicks that seem to be churned out (and hey i really enjoy a good action flick). Id class this as more of an action/ adventure - interestingly shot, and with a great atmosphere - which sticks surprisingly well to the plot of the book - helped by some decent acting.… Expand

   • Helpful? 2 of 2 users said Yes.
3. Shiira

   7

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. No mincing of words, this slave, who tells the Roman centurion in second century terms that he doesn't want to be friends. No uttering of thanks is coming forth from the northern tribesman, this Caledonian lad, only vitriol, which has been compounding itself over the intervening years with new each new increment of loss life at the hands of his people's long-standing enemy, "The Empire". "I hate everything you stand for but I must serve you," Esra(Jaime Bell) begrudgingly tells Marcus(Channing Tatum), the day after the Roman saves the slave's life in the amphitheater, where the centurion prevents a one-sided gladiator match from taking place. Possessing the power to determine life and death, Marcus gives the thumbs up sign, swaying the other spectators to do the same, therefore sparing Esra from being hacked to pieces by an executioner-sized man swinging an executioner-sized axe. It's the young boy's lucky day: a pacifist Roman? Was there such a thing? No. This is an anachronism. The Romans were as bloodthirsty as they come, an unconscionable bunch. "You have stolen our lands, killed our sons, and defiled our daughters," shouts the spokesman of an angry mob, who hold Marcus' patrol hostage, and instigates a fight in which we gravitate toward the centurion, and root for his survival, even though we know the Celtics have a right to their rage. The politics in "The Eagle" is tricky; it's pro-Imperialism. These Roman soldiers were depraved and incorrigible, responsible for countless crimes against humanity, and yet the filmmaker has the audience backing up this omnipotent regime in their attempt to signify their imperialism by capturing the legion's eagle standard back from the Seal People, a Pictish tribe up north. Against the backdrop of an unofficial holocaust, "The Eagle" has the gall to concern itself with Marcus' angst, the shame he inherits from his militaristic father, who twenty years earlier, lost a campaign against the Seal People, in which the Legio IX Hispana(Ninth Spanish Legion) and its gilded bird went missing."The Eagle", based on the 1954 historical adventure novel "The Eagle of the Ninth" by Rosemary Sutcliff, is a throwback to that unenlightened era, whose denizens still subscribed to the manifest destiny principle, as it was reflected in its racist westerns, where Indians were slaughtered wholesale by cowboys without the moviegoer ever batting an eye. In Esra, the film has in its employ a morally compromised character to fulfill the retrogressive ideology of the movie. At the killing grounds, where the elder Aquila's legion was slaughtered, we're supposed to be horrified by the brutality enacted by the tribesmen, who, according to Guern(Mark Strong), a legionnaire survivor, had "hacked the feet off the dead so they couldn't walk in the afterlife." His words strongly recall those of Ethan Edwards(John Wayne) from John Ford's "The Searchers", a rhetoric that forces the moviegoer to associate the racism of the cowboy with the Scottish rebels, which positions the Romans as Indians, the victims of a despicable act, and the Pictish tribes as cowboys, the cold-blooded killers. Although the slave is prejudicial toward the Roman Empire, whose waves of marauding armies had decimated so many families like his own, the orphan joins forces with Marcus, adopting and internalizing the centurion's quest for familial redemption, and the moviegoer is supposed to accept this unilateral shift in loyalty as a byproduct of the deepening friendship between the two disparate men. That's because "The Eagle" merely tells us about the violence that the Romans practiced on the the wild Brits, whereas the film shows us Roman skulls, Roman bones, which has a visceral impact on Esra, we assume, since it has a visceral impact on us. Rome ends up looking like the victim. "The Eagle", in actuality, a western dressed in a historical epic's clothing, reimagines a "Dances with Wolves" that dances with hunters, where the Indian lives in isolation among the American soldiers and participates in the genocide of its own people. In a nutshell, that's what Esra does when he befriends Marcus. Marcus is like Dunbar, the union soldier played by Kevin Costner, in which the centurion has the same innate kindness and humanity, but here, these benevolent attributes are in service of the colonizing faction. "The Eagle" sides with the empire by overemphasizing the barbarity of the indigenous people(just like an old western), most emphatically, when the Seal father slits the throat of his young son after he allows the prisoners to escape. This indescribably cruel act gives Esra the impetus to remain with his natural born enemy. By becoming a Roman, he'll become civilized.… Expand

   • Helpful? 1 of 1 users said Yes.
4. TheGeographer52

   0

   Messy plot + pointless cause=Horrible Movie. The Eagle + good writing=what the f*ck are you thinking. One of the worst films ever.

   • Helpful? 1 of 1 users said Yes.

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