Agora

Directed by Alejandro Amenábar

(Not Rated)

***

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Agora is a “high-minded epic that ambitiously puts one of the pivotal moments in Western history onscreen for the first time,” said Todd McCarthy in Variety. Set in fourth-century Alexandria, the film foretells the end of Roman paganism and the rise of medieval Christianity through the story of Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), an astronomer and philosopher. Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar gives Agora an “intellectual seriousness” and thorough historical verisimilitude, exemplified by a painstaking re-creation of Egypt’s enlightened ancient capital. Good intentions, however, cannot save the film from Amenábar’s “ham-fisted methods,” said Eric Hynes in The Village Voice. Christian fundamentalists are the villains here, so the crusaders “snarl through unkempt faces,” while the clean-cut, brightly dressed Romans “suffer in slow-mo.” Amenábar never finds a “middle ground where heady ideas and metaphors coalesce into compelling drama.” Still, Agora deserves credit for having more on its mind than most costume films, said Natasha Senjanovic in The Hollywood Reporter. Histrionics aside, the film is a “timely parable” of religious extremism and intolerance.