Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (2063)

Content

JT (287 KP) rated The Oxford Murders (2010) in Movies

Mar 10, 2020

The Oxford Murders (2010)

2010 | International, Drama, Horror

4.8

(4 Ratings)

Movie Rating

From the first couple of scenes you’d half expect to see Inspector Morse and Lewis step out from behind one of the great pillars that surround Oxford University – sadly that is not going to be the case here. The story itself could have been taken right out of an Agatha Christie novel but the subsequent plot gets mixed up like the mathematical equation it is trying to lay out.

John Hurt plays Arthur Seldom a university professor whose life revolves around mathematical equations and whether or not we can prove truth and probability. Martin (Elijah Wood) is a graduate over from America looking at using Seldom to help him with his thesis.

The pair get mixed up in an altogether different set of circumstances when they must work together to solve a series of murders based around mathematical symbols. The Oxford Murders falls some way short of delivering on any tension or drama, which is a real shame. The script is over complicated and there is no real time to develop the characters before we are thrown head first into the first murder.

All in all it seemed rushed together. More strangely was the choice of director; Spanish born Álex de la Iglesia who also wrote the screenplay. A background largely based around foreign film I find it odd that he should have any idea about the true reflections of historic Oxford. Maybe that is where amongst other things The Oxford Murders falls down. In the hands of a more traditional English director we may have had a better outcome.

Kudos

Eleanor (1463 KP) rated Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross, #2) in Books

Aug 7, 2019

Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross, #2)

James Patterson | 2012 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Thriller

8.0

(29 Ratings)

Book Rating

Cliche Heavy Crime Drama

I listened to the audio version narrated by Michael Kramer and it was an OK narration some accents in particular Southern American were pretty laughable but some of the dialogue in this book really didn’t help.

It all starts off strongly (if very grimly - lots of nasty murder / rape descriptions I’d certainly avoid if your triggered by that sort of thing.) The tension builds nicely with Detective Alex Cross being drawn into the investigation of the disappearance and murder of women from East Cast college campuses. However about halfway it all seems to go off the boil and become very dragged out only to be topped off with a terrible and drawn out ending.

We are constantly told how smart the bad guys are but there's very little evidence of this. As evidenced when they take on Alex Cross on their own patch and somehow don’t seem to have a very good plan at all. This book is so very dated in terms of attitudes and descriptions of women and although I give a lot of lee-way to books from a different time I don’t think this was ever very well written in terms of the female characters. As an audio book I didn't mind it but I can imagine getting wound up reading some of the cliches throughout this book.

It suffers in terms of constantly telling us what to think of characters while not supporting this very well with the poor dialogue.