One of my all time favorites.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Granted, this is not a great movie by any measure. Its plot, acting and direction are enjoyable but not really memorable.And I'm no expert in martial arts movies, so I can't review Sho Kosugi and Jean-Claude Van Damme fighting performances in this flick.But I nevertheless find it to be an entertaining and refreshing movie because:a) It is slow-paced compared to movies churned out by Hollywood nowadays. I can't stand shaky cam photography nor "frantic" editing. I find 1980s pop-corn flicks quite relaxing.b) It is full of nice sights of Malta, a location you very rarely see in motion pictures. Its fortifications, distinctive architecture, sunny beaches, beautiful landscapes... It's quite refreshing to enjoy the beauties of an oft-overlooked location in movie-making. Malta is the real star of this picture.c) Doran Clark. She's a beautiful woman and quite convincing as the CIA agent "babysitting" the two kids. Why we haven't seen her in more movies is beyond me.All in all, this flick is a guilty pleasure, but for good reasons.

Ken Tani (Sho) is a CIA agent assigned to Malta where a highly sophisticated plane with a destructive weapons system has been found underwater. His goal is to get to it before the evil Russians. The most evil-est Russian of them all is a man named Andrei (Van Damme) and he'll stop at nothing to prevent Tani from getting to the plane before his KGB brethren. To ensure Tani does his job, his two children, Denny and Brian (Shane and Kane Kosugi) have been flown to Malta and put under the care of Patricia Parker (Clark), a woman who brings them to museum after museum with a bunch of tourists in order to bore them out of their minds. Well, according to Survivor, it's "East vs. West, it's the paradox that drives us all." Will Sho overcome against Van Damme? Don't bother finding out today! Black Eagle is pretty much universally acknowledged as one of Van Damme's weakest films, especially from among the early part of his career. Well, we would just like to humbly add our voices to the chorus. The simple fact is, Black Eagle just isn't very good. And it's very easy to explain why: it doesn't work as an action movie, and it doesn't work as a non-action movie. It's like two big gears with a wrench right in between them that's stopping them from turning. The movie seems like it was made to cash in on the action movie boom of the day, and it was made by people with no grasp of how to make an effective action film. That's a fatal formula. Any supposed "action" is limp at best, and what occurs in the meantime is inept and no viewer could possibly care what these people are talking about. When there's no non-action going on, the movie is filled with moronic dialogue no one could possibly get invested in. It brings us no pleasure to say these things. We wish Black Eagle was better, we really do. But we have to tell the truth.You'd think a movie starring Van Damme and Sho Kosugi couldn't possibly be lame. It's a reasonable thing to think, and surely just about everyone who saw the box art for this movie while perusing their video store had the same feeling. But there's not just one, but TWO anti-climactic, very brief fights between the two. All the makers of Black Eagle had to do was make a movie about Sho taking down goon after goon in his own inimitable way, until the big fight at the end with Van Damme. You'd think that would be a no-brainer. But oh no, they couldn't just do that and satisfy the fans. They had to come up with a bunch of nonsensical claptrap to frustrate audiences. Straining for positives, we found that the movie had some pretty shots of Malta, and to be fair there are a handful of unintentional "laffs" that keep you going until the end, but Black Eagle is truly for Van Damme and Sho completists only.For instance, we have the world's largest "No Smoking" sign, and Van Damme's pants are hiked up to the max (and in other scenes, especially some of his hilariously unnecessary scenes where he's doing a split, he appears to be an old-fashioned strongman, which is very silly). Sho has some nutty moments of his own, especially when he's on the deck of a boat, screaming utterly incomprehensible dialogue to other characters on an upper level of the boat. Not only is it unnecessary that these characters be so far apart, space-wise, but Sho screams all his dialogue while wearing nothing but a Speedo and glasses. Talk about a stylish combo. Sadly, this is the only movie where Van Damme and Sho were together. You'd think they would have reconvened at a later time to make a better movie. Maybe there's still time.Packed to the rafters with stupidity, Black Eagle is unlikely to appeal to its main potential audience - action fans - and will alienate every other potential viewer as well. Unless you're in an especially masochistic mood, we say avoid Black Eagle.

this action movie staring Shô Kosugi and Jean-Claude Van Damme was not all that exciting,but it was watchable enough.there isn't really a lot of action in the movie.Van Damme plays one of the villains here and has two showdowns with Kosugi.both fight scenes are OK,but not thing spectacular and of very short duration.the movie itself wasn't boring,but it wasn't exactly exciting either.it's one of movies where you can take it or leave it.i doubt i would watch again anytime soon.it has a rating of 3.2 here on this site.i would rate it a bit higher than that,as i didn't find it awful,just underwhelming.for me,Black Eagle is a low 5/10

Strange movie this is. It's a typical 80's action movie trying to be a James Bond film (with Van Damme in the Jaws role) with two non-English leads (the heavy accents are all over the place) and it works on no level at all.The story is plain stupid and could probably be resolved in real life through simple diplomacy or a quick Navy Seals operation. But of course this is one-man operation and boring it is...Set against the background off Malta only one men can take on a ship full of evil Russians while entertaining his kids on vacation (and I'm not making that up). What surprises me about the man that goes by the codename of Black Eagle is how 1-dimensional his character is considering he has the most screen time and they tried to flesh him out by having his kids around. he stays bland, but then again he has no charisma at all...Then Van Damme, here having about half the amount of lines Ah-nold had in Terminator he comes off as a baddie we all like. He gets more physics to display, he gets the cool moves, he even is more fleshed out (physical and character-wise) then the good guy. At the end I was just hoping Van Damme would knock his lights out.Unless you're watching a horror film (allthough this movie is a horror to watch) you're not supposed to root for the bad guy. But I was. I'm thinking they re-shot scenes making van Damme's character more likable after the success of Bloodsport, but it messes the movie up even more....