A young friend of mine just achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest honor awarded by the Boy Scouts of America.
The eagle was also chosen by our Founding Fathers as the national bird (as opposed to Benjamin Franklin's preferred choice, the turkey), as a symbol of courage and … again, honor.
So, perhaps it's no surprise that the overriding, over-and-again-and-again theme of Hollywood's latest release, "The Eagle" is also all about … honor.
Casting hunky heartthrob Channing Tatum as a Roman centurion in 140 A.D., "The Eagle" is part history mystery, part buddy film and part warrior flick, something in the line of "Gladiator" or "Braveheart" – only, nowhere near as good as those two films.
"The Eagle" suffers on two primary accounts: the director's choice to shoot the movie so darkly, the audience is left wishing it could take the sunglasses off the lens and a script that is simply too thin to carry the entire film. Too much of the movie consists of characters traveling through ancient Britain without enough plot or conversation to justify the screen time. It's almost as though it's a short story stretched out, desperately trying to fill a full motion picture.
On the bright side, Tatum and his sidekick Jamie Bell do an admirable job of playing the brooding brutes, men of honor and courage, contemplative warriors. When "The Eagle" isn't plodding on, it's not a bad guy movie, as it strikes the right chords of courage, valor, underdogs, overcoming, battle, triumph, honesty, vindication and all that stuff (that frankly I really, really like).
But epic it's not. A few laughably dumb choices in the film, especially leading up the final battle scene, and the lack of engaging dialogue – particularly between the main two characters, who certainly should have talked to one another at some point during their journey – dampens the testosterone and dulls the movie's impact.
Tucked inside the script, however, is a flood of references to a father, a son, a redeemer and a slave set free …
Hmm, that sounds almost … biblical.
"The Eagle" focuses its attention on Marcus Aquila, son of an infamous Roman general who led 5,000 men north of Hadrian's Wall into ancient Scotland and then disappeared, along with all his men and a treasured golden standard, an eagle, carried ahead of the soldiers.
Marcus determines to win back his family's honor by serving nobly as a centurion, but eventually decides he must venture north into the Highlands with his Pict slave, Esca, to rescue the eagle and thus erase his family's shame. But when Marcus crosses the Wall, he finds the tables turned, and the master must bow to the slave to save both his life and the eagle.
Scattered into this story of a son serving his father and freeing a slave are a host of lines that – taken deliberately out of context – sound remarkably metaphorical to the biblical story of Jesus, Son of God:
- "No man should beg for his life," says the redeemed slave; "You didn't," answers the son, "I did it on your behalf."
- "I hate everything you stand for," says the son's enemy, who faces a redeemer he didn't ask for (see Romans 5:10), "but you saved my life; for that I must serve you."
- "When I ran from your father," admits the former soldier of the father who returns to serve the son, "I ran from myself."
There are other lines as well, including the son praying to his father and other curious moments that parallel the biblical story, but unfortunately, there isn't enough sinew in the script to call it a coherent metaphor.
Ultimately, "The Eagle" isn't about anything more than what you can see in the trailer: A young soldier looking to rescue his family name travels with a slave who teaches him about the true meaning of honor. But while the film may earn a few merit badges for intent and acting, "The Eagle" isn't ready to be awarded the honor its name implies.
Content advisory:
- "The Eagle" has very little obscenity, with only a few objectionable words uttered.
- The film also has very little sexuality, limited to a few shirtless men, the mention of rape by rogue soldiers, Marcus fleetingly seen in loincloth and a couple of men hung naked from a tree (some rear nudity). Other than some giggling admiration of Marcus by some young village girls, there is no romantic storyline in the film.
- There is, naturally, a significant amount of violence and bloodshed. In addition to battle scenes, dead bodies and sword fighting, the film shows a severed head, a boy being struck, a raw rodent being (rather grossly) eaten by hungry men and some gruesome wounds.
- The film is surprisingly loaded with religious content. Marcus, for example, prays several times to "the father of my fathers," who is identified in one scene as the mysterious Roman figure Mithras, uses incense and is clearly portrayed as a religious man. There is also a couple of scenes depicting the ceremonies of an ancient tribe of northern Britons – one sweat lodge scene in which the natives appear to be drugged and another where they dance and chant around a fire in odd ways, led by a witch doctor of sorts. All of the religion in the film, however, is vague and ancient, with little correlation to today's major religions or cults and is set as part of the film's backdrop.