Kevin Macdonald has made a decent, forthright, if finally uninspired sword'n'sandal drama, based on Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 children's novel The Eagle of the Ninth. It is set in AD140 in Roman Britain, and Channing Tatum stars as Marcus Aquila, an ambitious young commander who has accepted a posting to this barbaric place for one reason – to save his family's honour. Using as his pathfinder a British slave called Esca (Jamie Bell) whose life he spared, Marcus sets out on a personal mission in hostile territory to rescue the Ninth Legion's golden eagle standard, lost when his own father led this legion up into the mists of north Britain, only to vanish without trace. (Furious at this humiliation, Emperor Hadrian is because of this supposed to have built his famous wall to mark the northern limit of Rome's empire and governable civilisation.) It is good storytelling stuff – especially when, at the mercy of local tribes who are pacified only by Esca's obvious kinship with them, Marcus has to pose as Esca's slave. Esca seems in no hurry to end this deceit, and both Marcus and the audience wonder: is Esca getting to like this? The movie runs out of narrative steam a little in its third act, and becomes a faintly ridiculous bromance. But its robust form stands up well, with elements of Ridley Scott's Gladiator and Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans.