The Eagle, or, Why not to own slaves

[Magus]

Because being a slave sucks. Just ask Marcus Flavius Aquila, who encounters this very conundrum when his own slave, Esca, turns the tables on him on a quest north of Hadrian's Wall and has some of his fellow Celts treat him like one for a while, and he discovers that slavery is not cool at all. Silly Romans! Unfortunately white people decided that it was just not cool to own white slaves, ENTIRELY missing the point, but that is another epic movie (Gettysburg).

The Eagle is a historical adventure. If you have not seen the commercial, Marcus Flavius Aquila is the son of a dishonored commander of Rome's 9th legion, who led 5,000 men north of Hadrian's Wall on a mission of conquest. He and the rest were never heard from again, and to make matters worse, his father had been carrying the beloved Eagle standard of the 9th legion, losing it in the vast wilderness. Aquila, in hopes of returning honor to his family's name, decides to try and retrieve the Eagle standard by journeying north of Hadrian's Wall, accompanied by a slave he saved named Esca. But can he trust Esca not to slit his throat to gain revenge and freedom.

The interesting thing about The Eagle which many people have noted, including Roger Ebert, is the fact that it reminds people of some of the older modern film epics that involved hundreds of extras as opposed to CGI or other shortcuts to make battles come alive. The Eagle never approaches the scale of any of these epics (I mentioned Gettysburg as an example) but it has the same feel of a historical epic made about 15 or 20 years ago, like Last of the Mohicans. It is all very realistically portrayed with actual people and effects for the most part (some minor CGI was used in some instances, I am sure, when it is impossible to do it any other way) it is followed through on by avoiding CGI.

The movie does have a few weaknesses. Some of the dialogue was not the best I'd ever heard, the movie treads a few of the same tropes and twists we'd come to expect from such a plot, and a few of the actors were below par (a few of the side characters were not that great). A couple of the character flaws were not fully explored, either, to the extent I thought they could be (for example, Aquila shows not mercy in killing children, whereas Esca begs him to be merciful. He relents the second time it comes up, but it's not really explored that he felt it was a good idea because, y'know, killing children is wrong. He just does it because Esca asks him to. He has come to see Esca as a person and not just a slave so we can kind of assume he feels the same about other Celts but who knows?).

All in all though I thought it was quite an interesting movie and pretty exciting, and it had high production values. It also felt real, as I mentioned. If anyone else sees it, feel free to give your thoughts and we can discuss it.

EDIT: Note: When I said the movie was "historical adventure" I meant "historical fiction". I have no idea if there was ever an Eagle standard thingy at all and I bet if there was and it was lost one guy didn't go get it. But anyway just a clarification.