Review of The Eagle (2011) by Halfwelshman — 20 Dec 2011
The Eagle starts well - director Kevin Macdonald is clearly concerned with providing the viewer with an immersive, authentic historical world, and the details of the everyday life of a Roman soldier are fascinating to witness.
Channing Tatum's Marcus Flavius Aquila also begins the film as a well-developed, compelling protagonist. Where the film begins to falter is somewhere early in the second half. Allegory between the actions of the Romans and the modern American military is heavy-handed and unsubtle, and the representation of the main Pict tribe as very akin to Native Americans is more than a little jarring.
What is also laughable is the completely blatant homoerotic subtext between Marcus and Esca (Jamie Bell). The Eagle could have been a clever, compelling and believable historical epic, but instead is overburdened with pretentious intellectual baggage and some drastic misjudgements in tone.
This review of The Eagle (2011) was written by Halfwelshman on 20 Dec 2011.
The Eagle has generally received mixed reviews.
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