Kevin Macdonald
The Eagle

Britannia, 140 A.D. Marcus Flavius Aquila returns to the land where his family lost honor, when years ago his father, commander of the IX Legion, was defeated by local populations, resulting in the loss of the Eagle, the symbol of the Roman legions, the symbol of Rome in the world. The Eagle in enemy hands meant the destruction of the belonging legion and a disgrace of honor for the legion's captain. Marcus Flavius's goal is to retrieve the lost symbol, but more specifically, to restore his family's image.

An extremely poor and somewhat "childish" backdrop is what forms the basis of the film "The Eagle," another work by that Kevin Macdonald who, after the already controversial "The Last King of Scotland," seems to have lost his way, at least as far as feature films are concerned, while for documentaries (see "My Enemy's Enemy"), the situation is largely different.

Although the purely directing and formal setup has some interesting insights, with particular emphasis on the exaltation of splendid locations, it is the story itself that fails to take off, in fact, it leaves one more than once puzzled due to an evident lack of depth. Especially in the second part of the film, there is a complete unraveling, as it becomes bogged down in improbable "seal men" and legionaries returned directly from hell. But the real weak point of Macdonald’s work is the use of the historical vehicle as a critique of today's society: the reference to the oppressive Western civilization is clear, and although the discontent with "Western" methods may even be justifiable, the result on screen appears decidedly out of place and too "ethically biased," rendering it far too cloying in several parts.

What in the second part seems to become a kind of fantasy road movie in the God-forsaken Britannia, is nothing more than another film that pretends to use historical past as a vehicle for sensationalism, without achieving the visual and catastrophic results of Neil Marshall's previous "Centurion" (also focused on the disappearance of the IX Legion).

After the anonymous and bland "State Of Play," for Macdonald another work lacking truly interesting ideas.