Cooridinates film production issues in our blog

“The Eagle” is a new movie set in the wilderness of the North of Britain during Roman times. It’s based on a book written in 1954 by Rosemary Sutliff that’s entitled “The Eagle of the Ninth.” Sutliff was one of the 20th century’s most popular authors for children and young adults.
New movie release, “The Eagle,” is a little too one-dimensional but it’s still an exciting story of the clash of the Roman culture with that of the inhabitants of Britain of the time. The theme of the upcoming movie is lost honor that’s regained. It’s much less bloody and brutal than most movies about this time period.
This movie picture will undoubtedly do well in Britain and perhaps in some other international markets but may not do as well in the U.S. The PG-13 release by Focus may be a little too simple for adults and teens may not think that it has enough action or fun.
Viewers are going to notice right away that the Romans in “The Eagle” speak American English. Usually, Romans in English speaking movies speak very high class British English and everyone else speaks American English. Scottish Director Kevin Macdonald made a clever decision here. The Romans should sound like outsiders in Britain. The British natives, a tribe called the Picts, speak Scots Gaelic that’s translated in subtitles. Macdonald’s choice of American English for the Romans also suggests that America has taken over Britain’s reputation as an empire builder. As clever as MacDonald’s language decision was, it can be a little hard to get used to.
Macdonald and producer Duncan Kenworthy both loved Sutliff’s novel as children and new movie reviews will say that they adapted their favorite childhood book with a lot of care. They do a great job in the movie of imagining what the tribes who lived north of Hadrian’s Wall in the year 140 A.D. must have been like.
The mystery in “The Eagle” is what happened to the 5,000 men who were part of the Ninth Legion – the brave men who vanished in Scotland (or Caledonia, as it was then called.) It has recently been discovered that the Ninth Legion showed up at some later point in Germany but the story in the movie is set twenty years after the disappearance. It’s much more exciting to consider that the troops just disappeared, rather than thinking that they showed up in Germany some time later.
Marcus Aquila, played by Channing Tatum, is the young commander in charge of a Roman fort in the midst of the British woods. He is after only one thing – restoring his father’s honor. His father led his troops into the northern wilderness and disappeared. Marcus Aquila needs to find the golden eagle of the Ninth.
Marcus is quickly wounded by the locals, and his limp after he recovers is another symbol of a disabled empire. Once wounded, Marcus is relieved of his duties and goes to the villa of his uncle, played by Donald Sutherland to heal. He soon learns that the Eagle may have been seen in the North. Jamie Bell, appears in the movie as Esca, a young Caledonian slave.