Review of Agora (2009) by Bradley H — 21 Jun 2011

This film was a tremendous disappointment. The drama inherent at a point in history where old religions were clashing with a new one, the intellectual advancements of the Greeks and Romans were clashing with the new dogmas of Christianity and the crumbling Roman Empire was giving way to new governments should easily have made for an interesting story. On top of that, Hypatia provides a relatively unknown hero to place at the center of it all. But the writer/director, as ambitious as he was, squanders this potential with jumpy, unsure and dull storytelling.

Compounding the problems of the story are lackluster performances (most surprisingly from Rachel Weisz), bizarrely mediocre battle sequences, a love story that seems forgotten by the director until he needs it, liberal historical adjustments and tiresome visuals from space as if the audience needed to be convinced that the Earth is indeed round.