All roads may lead to Rome, but where do these roads begin? And what's just beyond that beginning? The investigation of this, while perhaps an aside to the core conflict of Kevin Macdonald's The Eagle, is what sets it apart from the typical sword and sandal pic.
Channing Tatum plays Marcus Aquila, despatched to Britain to toe the line against the Barbarians. He is quickly given a rough welcome and is wounded during a cleanly photographed rescue mission reminiscent of the artful battle moves in John Woo's Red Cliff. During his convalescence he falls in love, um, excuse me, forms a friendship with Jaime Bell, a young slave he saves from becoming gladiator meat. In no time at all the two are off to find adventure north of Hadrian's Wall, despite the protestation of the always welcome Donald Sutherland.
They seek not just glory, but the resuscitation of Marcus' family name. He's on a big golden MacGuffin Hunt, looking for the lost Eagle that was part of the standard of the missing Ninth Legion that (wouldn't ya know it?) was lost by Marcus' old man.
Up til this point The Eagle is deftly walking the line between fun toga party and a weight-of-the-world bloody redemption pic. Once they cross the wall, The Eagle gets into the zone.
If you think Scottish people are weird today, just imagine what they were like back then. Shifting into an ethnographic style of filmmaking reminiscent of, say, Nic Roeg's Walkabout, we are shown (and not told) snatches of the "seal peoples'" culture. For a modern audience it is a double-whammy. If the rough world of slave ownership and un-anesthetized surgery that is Rome is meant to be our common frame of reference, how are we to view the indigenous?
In keeping the story rooted in, essentially, a heist trope, messy details like cultural imperialism can get easily tossed aside. When Tatum and Bell hook up with some lost Roman soldiers leading a quiet, almost feral life in the woods, it is easy to cheer when they join the fight because, heck, it's Mark Friggin' Strong and he's whippin' out SPQR-worthy quotes.
The Eagle's battle sequences strive to be different. They stay small, make good use of sound design and feel, for lack of a better description, real. It's not Braveheart-bloody, but the arms seem heavy, the fighting seems difficult.
The Eagle isn't likely to make anyone's list of best movies ever, but it is hard to find much fault with it. If it does have a weak spot it is, alas, front and center with lead actor Channing Tatum, an actor blessed/cursed with well-defined competence.
