Braveheart meets Last of the Mohicans in this ripping yarn based on the 1950s children's novel The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff (which I well remember).
Marcus Flavius Aquilla (Channing Tatum) goes north in the company of his slave, Esca (Jamie Bell) in search of the Eagle standard that was lost in battle to indigenous tribes 20 years earlier in which the entire legion, led by Marcus's father was wiped out. The story is essentially about honour and the relationships between master and slave (there is an intriguing role reversal later in the film), and occupier and the occupied. The bleakness of the unknown north of Hadrian's Wall, with its mist, rain and glens, is perfectly captured in the Scottish locations. The mysterious Seal People however, all woad, mud and punk hairstyles, seem to be cast as a cross between the Huron from Last of the Mohicans or miserable refugees from the Glastonbury Festival - either way, not the sort of people to meet on a dark night.
Interestingly all the Romans are played with American accents and the enmity between Roman and Briton is not shirked - possibly a deliberate analogy of the situation in Iraq.
The film eschews CGI (hooray!) in favour of set piece action sequences and shaky cameras and is all the better for it. It has a gritty realism that lazy use of CGI can never hope to match and the clash of sword on shield, up-close and personal, brings meaning to the word testudo.
The film is without any female roles and therefore has no love interest but there is none of the home-erotic nonsense that is in say, The 300.
As with all historical yarns however the dialogue can be laboured and jerky but hey, get over it. All in all not a bad film and a good way to spend a couple of hours. Just don't take your girlfriend.
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