“You’ll gladly enslave yourself to Kevin Macdonald’s rollicking sword-and-sandal epic” which is “a beautifully executed piece of pulp fiction”, says Time Out New York of The Eagle. It is, says The New York Magazine, an “unfashionably exciting adaptation“, and a “rip-snortin adventure tale” says influential Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times, Read More »
Tag: film
The Eagle Film Review | Pop Culture Ninja
MacDonald, a Scotsman and long-time fan of the novel (The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff), does the source material proud with a visually exquisite and painstakingly detailed portrait of his homeland’s chaotic history.
Along the way, he also spins an engrossing tale of unlikely brotherhood and survival amidst a wilderness of foes, real and imagined. Not all of The Eagle’s 114 minutes work perfectly, but in an era of overproduced special effects it is refreshing to see a film where the locations actually exist, those armies are really there, and death isn’t just a clever transition to the next scene.
The Eagle film second only to The King’s Speech on Lawton favourability index!
Of course, I have been keen to see how The Eagle film, based upon Rosemary Sutcliff‘s book The Eagle of the Ninth, has been ‘doing’ since its release, and how it has been received. (My amalgam of particularly favourable initial reviews is here – under the title “The Eagle is a ‘rip-snortin’ ‘real winner’ with an ‘unusually strong sense of place …’ “!). Judging by the amount of money being taken at the box office in the USA in its first few days, The Eagle has certainly done less well than various competing films – competing in the sense that they too are in cinemas. But judging by the high popularity of the film once people do see it, maybe that is a result of the marketers not getting enough people to the movie in the first place? And maybe that is a result of failing to make enough people aware of the film and want to see it in advance of release? And maybe that would not have been the case if they had stuck with the more memorable The Eagle of the Ninth as a title? Read More »
The Eagle (2011) ” … an anti-Gladiator movie?” | The Warden’s Walk | Movie Review
The novel The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff, is one of blogger David Urbach’s favourite authors: “I desperately wanted to see this (film The Eagle). Been waiting for it for years”. David has commented previously here on this Rosemary Sutcliff blog, and writes his own intriguing The Wardens Walk, with reviews of fantasy and sci-fi books, movies, and webcomics. He writes a long, thoughtful analysis of The Eagle. He starts his key thoughts section:
In some ways, The Eagle is sort of an anti-Gladiator movie. The scale is realistic and human rather than epic. The locales are tangibly real instead of glitzy CGI. The heroes do not engage in superstar posturing, do not splatter their enemies’ blood at every opportunity, and do value honor and mercy over revenge. It may not be as thrilling or spectacular as Gladiator, but it’s more internally consistent, and, in its own way, wiser and more heartening.
His recommendation is:
Not a perfect movie, but very good and rather unique. For those who like movies about ancient Rome and period adventure stories, yes. Also, if you saw Gladiator (2000) and thought “Well that’s fun, but I wonder what it all really looked like,” then you should see this movie. The Eagle should appeal to movie-lovers who are frustrated with the way modern action movies prefer to ignore story and character in favor of rushing from bloody killing to bloody killing. It’s an exciting adventure that really does care about the characters and their relationship
And after a detailed analysis, in ‘quick conclusion’ he comments:
… despite some flaws with ‘Shaky Cam’ and a bare-bones script, The Eagle is an exciting and beautiful-looking adventure, with a strong sense of place and themes that are wiser and more unique than are usually found in period Hollywood movies.
The Eagle movie compared to classic American western- Hammervision Movie Review
For those of you still wrestling with whether to see “The Eagle”, I think it is a fair statement to compare it to such classic early American westerns as “A Man Called Horse” (1970) and “A Man in the Wilderness” (1971). Both starred the late Richard Harris as an American trapper and explorer forced to come to grips with the indigenous people whose land he was invading. In “The Eagle”, Tatum goes through the same metamorphosis as he sees first hand the destruction that Rome has visited on local tribes in the name of glory and conquest.
Source: Movie Review – The Eagle – Hammervision.
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 