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Friday, February 11, 2011

Film / Film Reviews / News The Eagle rarely soars

Posted By on Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 2:03 PM

Eagle of the Ninth

By Matt Brunson

THE EAGLE

DIRECTED BY Kevin Macdonald

STARS Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell

It's a tricky business, casting the roles of Romans in period spectacles. It's not that Americans are expecting actual Italians in these parts — on the contrary, with rare exception, we've long been conditioned to believe that Roman soldiers, emperors and the like sound best with British (or Australian) accents. We accepted Russell Crowe in Gladiator and Malcolm McDowell in Caligula; we did not accept John Wayne as the Centurion overseeing Christ's crucifixion in The Greatest Story Ever Told (you haven't lived until you hear The Duke drawl, "Truly, this man was the son of God").

So here we have the capable character actor Denis O'Hare (Michael Clayton, Milk, etc.), yet when he speaks as Roman officer Lutorius in The Eagle, his flat Yankee drone is enough to make the ears bleed. Similar instances of awkwardness can be found throughout this adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's novel The Eagle of the Ninth, which casts dull Channing Tatum as Marcus Aquila, an honorably discharged Roman officer who marches into enemy territory (specifically, the nether regions of Britain) to retrieve the titular golden emblem with only a surly slave (Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell) by his side.

The Eagle is a handsome production, but Jeremy Brock's ornate script flags at key junctures, and director Kevin Macdonald never convinces us that this is anything more than actors playing dress-up. For a comparable lack of verisimilitude, I'd rather just stay home and pop Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part I into the DVD player — a line like "The eagle is not a piece of metal. The eagle is Rome" doesn't stand a chance against the likes of "Don't get saucy with me, Bernaise!"

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