Ian McKellen
The Good Liar features great performances from Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren, but the film can’t overcome other problems. Chris Cassingham reviews.
All Is True fails to really justify itself: it’s a patchwork of ideas that never really coalesces confidently.
There is something so endlessly fascinating about the character of Sherlock Holmes that prevents him from ever becoming boring to audiences, no matter how different Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective creation is to the pop-culture tastes of the time. The source material is so undeniably entertaining that even if it gets revised as an action blockbuster, as seen in Guy Ritchie’s two recent movies, or transplanted into the modern day, on Steven Moffat’s BBC series, it never loses any of its original charm. No matter how unique a new adaptation of the stories may be, Doyle’s stories are so widely revered that nearly every adaptation of them remains faithful to the essence of the characters, even if they may take a few liberties.
Peter Jackson’s first Lord of the Rings trilogy is potentially one of the finest trilogies ever made. Each film in the series, from Fellowship of the Ring to Return of the King, are all solid masterpieces, containing beautiful cinematography, fine character acting, and iconic soundtracks by Howard Shore. The Hobbit series, on the other hand, is much more inconsistent.