Clif-Notes: The Eagle

Channing Tatum is not a good actor. Lets just establish that as a given. He's got looks and about as much presence as a coma victim (my apologies to any coma victims who may be reading this). Believe it or not, though, this I really liked this movie. There were even parts where I thought Tatum had hope. The rest of the movie put that idea to rest, but there were parts.
The Eagle tells the story or Marcus Aquila (Tatum) who, after being honorably discharged from his Legion, takes his slave Esca (Jamie Bell) on a journey to find the lost Eagle of his father's Legion, lost many years ago, hoping to restore honor to both he and his father and their family name.
I was pretty surprised by this movie. Jamie Bell has had "smaller" parts on movies like Defiance and King Kong but nothing big since his debut in Billy Elliot. While he takes second place to Tatum's first in the story, he is easily the best actor to be on the screen, Donald Sutherland and Mark Strong included. I was also very impressed with the directing (Kevin Macdonald). Maybe. I don't know movies enough to maybe get more specific but this movie look great the whole way. I actually came outta this one thinking that if it were forty minutes longer and starring Russel Crowe, people would eat it up. The story had a lot of potential to be a huge, "epic" movie like those. It was a bit saddening to see how jumbled it looked at spots. I couldn't help but think that if they could add in another five minutes in between the bigger scenes, that's exactly what we would have had.
This movie will probably not be for everyone. People will easily be caught up in Tatum's bad acting or get hung up on the five pieces of bad dialogue that are spread throughout but they shouldn't. The story was great and the visuals were awesome. Check out this movie when you get a chance. I would love for you to tell me how wrong I am.