The Eagle (2011)

The Eagle: A Channing Tatum Joint is a stressful movie.  With so much moral ambiguity it's hard to know who to root for...the oppressive Romans who seek to rule all of the British Isles, or the native Britons who dress up like lunatics and murder for fun?  Never mind that the movie just assumes you'd be on the side of the Romans, because the filmmakers are too stupid to realize that their main character isn't even slightly sympathetic.

Deliverance Banjo Kid all grown up on 'roids Channing Tatum is all the star power The Eagle has to offer, which should give you an indication of the movie's quality.  From Fighting to GI Joe Rise of Cobra to Dear John, Channing has been trying as hard as he can to be the Steven Seagal of the 21st century.  The squinting, the mumbling, the cavalcade of instantly-forgettable performances...it's all there.  He just needs to get old, join up with some obscure Asian religion and become a truly overweight shitbag cop and the cycle is complete. 

Oh yeah, the plot.  So apparently in Roman times they made these giant golden eagles that vanguard forces of the army would take into newly-conquered lands.  Channing's dad was a super cool Roman general guy who decided to take one of these eagles into enemy territory and was promptly torn apart by the super-evil Briton savages who selfishly didn't want to be enslaved.  The Romans build Hadrian's wall to keep the filthy paleskins at bay, forming what you might call a Green Zone that's a safe refuge for the civilized soldiers in the midst of a war-torn land.  The jarhead (or brush-head) Roman soldiers find themselves led by the son of the failure who lost the Eagle.  Lucky for them, Channing has super-human hearing due to the fact that he has severely reduced vision from all that squinting and wakes them all up in the middle of the night to fend off a surprise Briton ambush.

The director must have realized at this point that no one in the audience gives a fuck so he has the Briton leader, a babbling Druid, take some Roman soldiers hostage.  They drag one up to Hadrian's wall and behead him.  Pretty gruesome, eh?  Not really, since The Eagle is PG-13 so retarded teenagers could potentially pay money for a ticket.  Any time in the movie that someone is about to get beheaded, eviscerated or otherwise brutally murdered the camera turns away. 

So this turns out to be a ruse, and Channing's phalanx of wannabe Spartan warriors who went out to save the other survivors gets set upon by war chariots.  After a magic spear throw that kills the Druid leader Channing gets hit by a 2-ton out-of-control chariot that knocks him out and cuts his leg a little.

He goes back to the Green Zone and gets some stone-age surgery which turns him into a cripple.  While rehabbing his leg he visits the local bread and circus deathmatch where the daily matchup is the two-face helmeted gladiator guy from Gladiator versus a shrimpy 98-pound Briton slave who refuses to fight.  As the Gladiator is about to strike the killing blow the audience screams "Death!  DEATH!!" with their thumbs down.  Channing has an epiphany and throws his thumb up, yelling "No!  Life!  LIFE, GUYS!"  which totally turns the mood of the crowd around.  The Briton whose life he saved becomes his slave, swearing to be loyal to him forever.

Channing decides to go on an epic quest to find the eagle his father lost while being devoured by cannibal Scots.  He takes his Briton slave up past Hadrian's wall into the wilderness.  At every opportunity Channing treats his slave buddy like shit.  He orders him around, tells him about how his people need to be crushed by the Empire and squints at him accusingly.  Channing doesn't even speak the local language and if anyone figured out he was a Roman soldier his innards would be used for haggis and blood pudding.  The slave is his only hope for survival, but he's still an elitist dick to him.  You would think that as soon as Channing closes his eyes to rest the slave would cut his throat and head home.  Maybe it was really hard for the slave to tell if Channing was asleep or not, which is understanding.

Channing finds some old Roman soldiers who escaped the massacre back in his father's time.  They have all gone native and no one knows where the eagle is.  The only thing that points Channing in the right direction is praying to Zeus, wherafter he hears an eagle cry and follows it to the North.  I didn't even make that part up.

Channing and the slave come across the Seal People, an ultra-savage group of Britons who wear grey bodypaint and bone armor 24/7.  Channing's slave tricks them into believing that Channing is actually HIS Roman slave.  Channing is unable to deduce this ruse and instead becomes enraged and calls the Briton a traitor, attempting to kill him with his bare hands.  The Seal People then proceed to beat his ass, repeatedly.  "We'll help you keep your slave in line" they helpfully offer.

After being humiliated for a while at the hospitality of the Seal People, Channing becomes witness to one of their heathen Druid rituals.  They all get drunk on goat piss and hallucinate while their deer-antlered shaman dances around in front of him.  And what does the shaman have as his magic staff, but the golden eagle.  As soon as he sees the eagle Channing tries to assault the shaman and promptly gets his ass beat again by the Seal People.

Channing's Briton slave then reveals that he was faking the whole time and he's still indentured for life to his Roman master.  They grab the eagle and take off on horseback.  The only one left in the village who's not stoned off his ass from last night's ritual is a little kid who is sorry to see the two leave.  The slave gives the kid a little wooden fish to remember them by and to not wake anyone up.


After their horses' legs break in the peat moss of the Scottish Highlands, it's a foot race against the Seal People.  Everyone back in ancient times had the ability to run for days on end.  It was a survival tactic that allowed them to hunt wooly mammoths, one which disappeared with the invention of polyunsaturated fats.  Channing's wound starts to give him trouble and he goes into septic shock.  His slave runs off back to Hadrian's wall in a stupid attempt to get reinforcements from the Romans.  In case you were wondering, Channing still treats him like a dick.  He very begrudgingly gives the slave his freedom in order for him to leave his side to go find help.


So the Seal People who have been running for a week finally catch up with Channing, who takes time off from puking his guts out to somehow be in fighting shape again.  Magically, his former slave comes back with all the disgraced old Roman warriors who had lost the eagle to begin with, their armor and weapons still intact.  "Defend the Eagle!"  Channing commands.


But the Seal People have one last surprise.  The director must have remembered that at this point absolutely no one would be sympathetic to Channing and are most likely actively rooting for the Seal People to kill him, so he tries to demonize the savage Britons one last time.  The Seal People have brought that little kid from the village, the one who got the wooden fish from Channing's slave.  They then slit his throat (off-camera) to show just how hardcore they are.  It's cool that these guys sprinted for a hundred miles with a little kid in tow just to make a point (and wipe out one of their small village's only male heirs), but whatever.  A slow-mo 300 Spartans fight ensues where all the Seal People and old Romans die and Channing is branded Best Roman Ever.  Hooray!

Moral of the Story:  Pray to Zeus, and you'll get shit done.