Reviews

Im not old enough to remember, and was almost entirely ignorant to (until I watched this film and then researched afterwards) the tragedies that happened in Uganda in the seventies.

James Mcavoy puts in another good performance as the narrator and main character Garrigan, a Scottish medical graduate wanting to get away from home- something I can relate to fairly well. So he travels to Uganda to become a local GP, but by chance he runs into the new ruler Idi Amin, and they immediately make an impression on one another so strong that Garrigan is invited to become the dictators private doctor, and ends up having a key role in Amin's regime.

Forest Whittaker, as you've probably heard already is spectacular in his role as Amin, one of the greatest performance I have ever seen. The film is so good at what it does, showing the regime from Garrigan's perspective, that I even believed Amins regime was the right thing for Uganda for about half of the film.

The weakest area of the film to me is the finale, there is one particular scene near the end that contains a minor but crucial plot hole, which dropped the perfect illusion the film had created up to then and stops me giving this full marks.

Definitely worth a watch, 9/10

I came to this movie having never read the book, I decided to watch it due to its stellar cast and intriguing premise and for almost 3 hours I was thoroughly entertained.

The film attempts to fit 6 vastly different but intertwined stories spanning at least 500 years, past, present and future. The stories are each told through the perspective of a single character, and the narrative flits between them with only 3-10 minutes at a time being on one story. Surprisingly, although initially deliberately so, the stories are not at all confusing if you are paying attention, and there is something very special about the mix of genres and watching an actor play 6 different roles in the space of 15 minutes. Each of the main actors/actresses has a different yet similar role in several if not all of the stories, for instance Hugo Weaving plays the antagonist in several stories. In one he is in his classic role as effectively agent smith from the matrix, in another he puts on make-up/a mask to play a Korean interrogator/ archivist, and in another he is in drag and plays an overly strict nurse at a retirement home.

This brings me to my first qualm, the make-up.masks that the actors wear to play their different roles is not always perfect, and this gives the actors a strange look as if their eyes are sunk deep(er) inside their heads along with some other issues. Apart from this single issue the rest of the film looks terrific and the score is particularly strong.

The actors/actresses are all terrific, most notably Hanks and Whishaw, and the film kept me interested throughout despite its run time. My second, final and largest problem with the film is a direct result of its premise. The fact that each story on average gets less than half and hour of screen time leaves me less emotionally connected to the characters, and therefore the finale scenes and payoff were not the same as in a regular film. Thankfully I feel I was able to appreciate the film as something much larger. It may attempt to achieve too much, but to me at least, it achieves all it can 8/10

I think most peoples and my main issue with the film is the subject matter. Everyone has seen the events of pompeii on screen many times and hence the plot and ending are no surprise, so we must be entertained by only the visuals and some sort of love story. The acting and directing were mostly fine. Kit Harrington and Emily Browning were passable and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje put in a noteworthy performance. The visuals and effects were by far the best aspect and kept the film very watchable and enjoyable to an extent throughout. The script was poor and most of the usual disaster movie clichés appeared at some point or other but in no way was it as awful as in say, 2012. Overall its probably not something to see at the cinema, but probably worth a watch on DVD or TV at some point. 5/10