The Eagle may not be the best film of the year, but for something that I had written off based on the trailer it is definitely far more entertaining and enjoyable than I ever expected.  And that’s for reasons far more universal than the pleasure of a brief glimpse of Channing Tatum’s “homewrecking” abs.  (Boyfriend’s choice of adjective, not mine).

Though parts of the story have some historical fact and speculation, the story is a work of fiction based on Rosemary Sutcliff’s novel The Eagle of the Ninth.  As many Roman men do, Tatum’s character, Marcus Aquila, is a military man who has just been given command of a small group of soldiers in Britain, for a short while anyway.  Short story shorter, his command ends prematurely after receiving wounds worthy of an honorable discharge during a fight to protect the fort from the enemy Britons.  Not one to live his life out as a slacker, Aquila decides that if he cannot serve his empire as a military man he will bring back its honor, and that of his father, by finding the golden eagle of the Ninth Legion, which went missing under his father’s protection 20 years prior. [Read more...]