DVD: The Eagle (12)

There's something old-fashioned about Kevin Macdonald's adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 Roman yarn The Eagle of the Ninth.

Eschewing the CG-saturated action of recent big-budget sword'n'sandal epics, the former documentarian strives for historical grit over brutality, immediacy over scale – unlike recent Ninth Legion bedfellow Centurion from fellow Brit film-maker Neil Marshall, which went for Michael Fassbender's exposed jugular.

A solid boys'-own adventure, The Eagle's wings are clipped by two-dimensional drama, embodied by its leading man Channing Tatum, whose Marcus Aquila looks the part but indulges in some decidedly 21st-century pouting. Tatum sets off with a slave (Jamie Bell, shackled in every sense) to cross Hadrian's Wall into savage Caledonia (the cinematography is suitably chilly north of the border) to find the golden eagle standard of the Ninth Legion, who disappeared mysteriously 20 years previous, commanded by Aquila's father.

With the conclusion and Aquila's family honour never in doubt, much of Sutcliff's story is left in the mud. The key relationship between the leads never moves beyond buddy-buddy bonding. But the sturm und drang of battle against feral Picts is hearty enough, even if it would have been scarier to create an army of bile-spitting Frankie Boyles to decimate Roman self-esteem with off-colour gags about Caesar's wife.