A place for FF's to write and read brief reviews of books and films for the benefit of other FF's.

A place for FF's to write and read brief reviews of books and films for the benefit of other FF's.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

The Oxford Murders (2008)

This is a movie with Elijah Wood and John Hurt which I watched because I am NOT picky. It's about some murders that happen at Oxford. Elijah Wood and John Hurt have a lot of arguments about math and philosophy, which are very boring, even though I'm pretty sure the math and philosophy they're discussing is pretty remedial. They explain the Fibonacci sequence to each other at one point. Also, John Hurt blows Elijah Wood's mind with this thing that everybody already knows about:



-It was made in 2008, but it's set in 1993 for some reason. There is a part where they use really old big cell phones. But why?
-The acting is so bad, but not because people aren't acting hard enough. People are certainly acting super hard in this movie.
-The head butler from Downton Abbey plays the Police Chief, so that's okay.
-Elijah Wood plays an American, but speaks very formally and stilted as if he really wants to be doing a British accent but was told not to.
-There's a lot of people yelling at each other the whole time, even though you can't tell why anyone's angry.
-There is constant overly dramatic music, such that you think maybe this movie is supposed to be a joke?
-There's a part where John Hurt dresses up as Guy Fawkes, because England.
-There's a part where Elijah Wood eats spaghetti off a lady's boobs. But then they just sit there and talk about math, but there's still spaghetti all over her and it's VERY distracting. Then Elijah Wood jumps up because he got an important idea or something, and he also has spaghetti sauce on him and you can't take anyone seriously in this scene.

From some reviews:

"The Oxford Murders" attempts to pose interesting philosophical and mathematical issues, but this purported whodunit thriller never solves its main mystery: How and why did this film get made in the first place?


And:

At the very least, trying to figure out the sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle provides a welcome distraction from the totally nullifying experience of watching The Oxford Murders.


The worst part was that one review mentioned that this movie was based on a book, and I suddenly realized I HAVE READ THAT BOOK. (The book was also called The Oxford Murders, so there were some clues.) I have to get my shit together.

1 comment:

  1. This review was supposed to make me want to see the movie, right?

    ReplyDelete