The Eagle

A friend of mine seemed extremely excited about this when she saw the trailer - apparently it's an adaptation of a kids book - so when the opportunity to see an advance screening at the Winnersh Showcase came up last night I thought it sounded like a good use of Orange Wednesdays. 'The Eagle' is based on the teen-fiction novel 'The Eagle of the Ninth' - which in turn is loosely based on the mysterious disappearance of the Ninth Hispanic Legion from Rome's annals in mid-second century Britain. Marcus Aquila is a Roman centurion whose father lead the Ninth and disappeared with the entire legion 20 years prior to the events of the film. He has a one-tracked mind, to recover the golden eagle of the Ninth legion and restore his family's good name.

The film becomes a standard band of heroes tale in which Marcus (Channing Tatum) and his British slave Esca (Jamie Bell) travel to Scotland to search for the Eagle. Esca is honour-bound to serve Marcus, but will his loyalty to his own people undermine each man's confidence in the other? The film is tight-lipped on the subject of who the 'bad guys' are here, though Marcus represents the Roman invasion force, Esca's people are often savage marauders who admit to killing their wives rather than allowing them to become Roman servants. Nice bit of 'grey area' work there - slightly undone by a moment towards the end though, but I wont dwell.

Every time I felt I was getting into 'The Eagle', it started to undermine itself by trying too hard to give the story a context for the modern viewer. A good example of this is when Marcus's uncle (Donald Sutherland) narrates a gladiatorial contest - "Hmm, a slave against a Gladiator, the slave often does badly here". No shit? Also the final scene teeters on the edge of turning into an Adam West Batman episode - always ending with a joke and a smile and a "I wonder where our next adventure will come from Robin...". Is this the kind of thing teenagers need? I thought that the modern teenager was supposed to be a savvy creature?

I was frustrated by the way that Roman Britain was portrayed in the film. There is a lot of historical debate over the level of integration of Roman society into Britain and the impact of rebellious elements like the Brigantes, the historical consensus seems to be that much of Britain was a place that largely embraced Roman rule. The film's suggestion that native Britons lived as slaves under rule by foreigners is almost certainly wrong. And they definitely didn’t have American accents.

Despite much of what I've said here, I recognise that the film isn't intended as a history lesson and that it is based on a novel aimed at a teenage audience. There are some brutally realistic battle scenes (although most of the audience seemed more freaked out by Esca eating a rat then the general carnage) and a huge amount of attention to detail with regard to costume and language. It's a perfectly respectable way to spend 2 hours in a cinema. Especially when it's a preview showing and there aren't any adverts or trailers - genius!