Fresh
Best of all is Anthony Dod Mantle's breathtaking photography: the Scottish Highlands have never looked so eerily, threateningly beautiful.
Tom Huddleston, Time Out
The Eagle
The destiny of a soldier. The honour of a slave. The fate of an empire.
2011 · 1h 54m · PG-13
Adventure, Drama
Directed by
Kevin Macdonald
Overview
In 140 AD, twenty years after the unexplained disappearance of the entire Ninth Legion in the mountains of Scotland, young centurion Marcus Aquila arrives from Rome to solve the mystery and restore the reputation of his father, the commander of the Ninth. Accompanied only by his British slave Esca, Marcus sets out across Hadrian's Wall into the uncharted highlands of Caledonia - to confront its savage tribes, make peace with his father's memory, and retrieve the lost legion's golden emblem, the Eagle of the Ninth.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
39%
Tomatometer
Rotten
The story sags in the middle, as our wanderers traipse through the highlands-not a happy environment for Tatum, who, before his journey even begins, looks all at sea in this distant age.
Anthony Lane, New Yorker
Fresh
Wild-eyed, long-haired Brits leap atop the Romans' shields as the soldiers blindly hack away, the bodies so close that you can barely tell the victor from the vanquished. The battles in the fog and rain have a hallucinatory power.
David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture
Rotten
However you slice it, The Eagle is hokum, but modern-day Scots may get a kick out of the film's depiction of their ancestors as mud-caked hellions. Modern-day Romans will have to settle for less.
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
Rotten
The latest sandals-and-swords outing, "The Eagle" has landed . . . with a thud.
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
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