The Oxford Murders (2008) Reviews

• Bland but Almost Saved by John Hurt

  Bob_the_Hobo2010-11-13

  I had high hopes for "The Oxford Murders", a new Straight-to-DVD film starring Elijah Wood and John Hurt, and most of those hopes were slowly let down as I watched the movie. The film follows Martin (Wood), an American who travels to Oxford to write his thesis under the legendary mathematician Arthur Seldom (Hurt), and finds an angry, pompous old man instead of the wise and caring fellow he had imagined. Disillusioned, Martin is about to return home when he and Seldom find a dead body. The rest of the film covers Martin and Seldom's race against time to find the killer, using the mathematical theories that both are knowledgeable about. The film is pretty bland. It's characters, save the amazing John Hurt, are one-dimensional. Martin is boring and unengaging and Elijah Wood does nothing to improve his script. The same can be said of Julie Cox and especially Leonar Watling. John Hurt is the only reason I finished, really. His acting skill is not at home in the world of blandness. You could do better than "The Oxford Murders", but if you're not looking for too much it will suffice.

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• Oxford Murders lacks intelligence

  terryarif2008-09-03

  I was optimistic that The Oxford Murders would be a clever and interesting story. Unfortunately it was as far from this as possible. I have never written a film review before and was so deeply unimpressed by this film that I was compelled to share my views. I find it very upsetting to think that the amount of money that was spent on this film could be wasted in such a manner. The film struggles on every level. Bad acting, coupled with a poorly written script and ill thought out plot plague this film from the offset. It simply fails to capture the imagination. The film is based in the English town of Oxford, famed worldwide for it's university and intellectual breeding. The plot centers around the relationship between a American exchange student, martin, and a lecturer at the university. The pair, somewhat oddly, become entailed in a series of pointless and quite pathetic 'murders'. A theasaurus happy writer has quite obviously engineered this film for Hollywood and it is largely for this reason that the film is so bad. The film tries to link complex mathematics and murder, apparently the murderer is leaving some kind of mathematical sequence at each murder. This is a common theme throughout the film, however it is quite sad that the writers think the viewers of this film will mistake basic secondary level concepts for nobel prize winning intellect. Painful examples of this lurk round every corner, like in one scene Martin and his Tutor are in the police station, they are talking about the murders and a symbol left at the first crime scene. Martin explains the fibonacci series word for word and is giving a impressed look from his tutor who is apparently a famous theoretical mathematician. Most children in England learn the Fibonacci series before they are 16. It appears as if no research has been carried out either. English characters are displayed whith such stereotypical generalism and it appears as if all extras that are in the film are in fact deformed in some way. Oxford is a village, and it is quite apparent that this version of Oxford looks like a cross between medieval england and the last of the summer wine (english country drama). From the thick police inspector and his daft side kick to crazy Russian (I say Russian, but you would have no clue what nationality he actually is based on the appalling acting of this character) mathematician. In fact the majority of characters in this film are completely irrelevant and actually serve nothing towards the plot. Being obviously aimed at Hollywood with every single basic academic principle being completely explained for the obvious benefit of the 'stupid' public, they obviously needed female relationships to complete this film. The sex scene is especially haunting, Elijah Woods pale and childlike figure is something which I would not wish on any man or women. The acting is of the lowest standard bar the performance of John Hurt, who is makes the best of an awful script and plot. The extras and cameo characters are so bad and Elijah Wood can only act in films which are special effect and fantasy based as they take the emphasis off of the actual acting. These issues are really only sub issues in comparison to the main problem. The plot. It really is sad to watch the plot embroil, from the detective inspectors who seem to share case files, car lifts and murder evidence with apparent murder suspects or perhaps maybe the strange cello playing daughter who falls it is later explained fell in love with Martin after meeting him once briefly for ten minutes and sharing a conversation. It could be the beautiful foreign student who is Martins main love interest, who it is explained used to be in a relationship with a 70 year old looking lecturer before hand, although she cannot be over 20 in the film. Or perhaps it is the murder sequence which developed which apparently took 2 police officers, a super intelligent student and world famous lecturer a age and a day to solve, which was eventually one of the most basic and simple series i think i have ever seen. In one impossible scene a man dies whilst playing a musical instrument and falls off of the stage in front of a packed crowd, in which police were sat. It is later explained with the cheesiest cut scene i have ever seen that after this guy fell of the stage and died, someone sneaked onto the stage in full view of everyone and apparently snuck a clue into the music book on the bandstand! Even though it is explained that at that the time the character in question is being followed and watched by police and the police officer who is watching the suspect is even shown as the camera moves over to him! I think I have had my rant and am finding it to painful to continue conveying the endless flaws which stalk this film so I will stop now. To be honest I am not really discouraging anyone to watch this, i am more upset with the quality of films which talent writers drill out in the quickest possible time because they think they are above everyone else. Please do not waste money on rubbish films like these, it is very depressing.

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• Good movie, wouldn't read the bad comments.

  jordan_0082008-07-20

  Most of the comments are from those who just didn't understand. Then of course try to make themselves seem smart just because they watched it. I recommend it. Not too many movies out like this, with lots of twists in a style I can't say I've yet viewed. As far as the comment goes on how everything is old, perhaps they've never seen a movie that was made to be in older style. Clearly doesn't watch a lot of movies, nor should be posting on a site like this. They were probably baffled and tried figuring out which country had the flying cars and 2D world after seeing the Jetson's cartoon. Anyway, enough ranting about people who can't grasp the depth. The acting wasn't bad at all I found. Of course Elijah acts different, which I see not everybody likes, but you need to respect the fact he's an actor. We all got to know him as "the guy from Lord of the Rings". Well, newsflash, in his defense he won't be acting the same way in this "smart" movie as he did fighting off monsters with a smaller vocabulary. He plays an intelligent role this time around. I can't say I know of 'anybody' who could figure out what happens in the end. It 'is' indeed a very deep plot, they twist your mind so much into understanding what's presently going on, you don't have a lot of time to think of what's going to happen. Well I'm tired, bedtime. If what I said doesn't all make complete sense, that is why. Goodnight, and I hope you enjoy the film :-)

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• A worth seeing mystery movie

  efewebber2008-01-19

  Fresh out of the cinema I have a very good feeling about the movie. My first impression is that it is definitely worth seeing. Alex de la Iglesia (the director of for instance "El Dia de la Bestia" or "La comunidad") makes this time a mystery movie following the classical parameters. A nice plot, specially for those who like mathematics or logic in general, with intricate moves and very nice dialogs by John Hurt and Eliah Wood (who, by the way, looks like a pretty solid actor. I had only seen him playing Frodo and was a bit worried about him getting stuck on that character, not at all) who basically follow the classical thoughts about "the perfect murder" and in the philosophical search for absolute truths. Being a fan of de la Iglesia, whose sense of humor is well known and pretty easy to recognize, I am quite happy to see that he is also able of making a genuine mystery film, with everything you expect to see on it, twisted arguments, funny characters ("Podorov", and of course, Dominique Pinon from, among others, Delicatessen) and a extremely good film-making, nice sequences, good mystery music, etc. To me, being a bit of a geek, the mathematical references are too obvious, the series shown are too well known, they are nice nonetheless, but for instance why to talk about Fibonaci numbers (which were also in the 'Da Vinci Code' when one can talk about many other nice and funny series? On the other hand being a mystery movie's lover one always enjoys the sequences which are clear homage's to previous classics, pay attention and you'll enjoy. Let me end up by mentioning the very nice work of Leonor Watling (you may have seen her before in, for example Almodovar's "Talk to her", her meaning she), who, apart from being a really good actress, of being extremely beautiful and attractive is also a pretty good singer! It was quite a pleasure, being Spanish myself, to see her playing an important role with such a great casting! So, watch it by yourself, the first "serious" Alex de la Iglesia movie, and he does a pretty good job!

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• Useful as a example of bad screen writing for future screenwriters

  rzajac2009-04-09

  This film would appear to be a case where a well-intentioned producer, or enclave of producers, noticed a public interest in conceptually high-toned and seemingly erudite subject matter, combined with more staid pop story elements, like serial murder (Se7en) or overcoming emotional/psychological issues (Good Will Hunting/A Beautiful Mind). The problem appears to be that they turned the screen writing job over to hacks. I know that's a brutal thing to say, but it really does appear to be the case. The film tries to wed serial murder and academic philosophical musing, but fails. Actually, it tries to bring quite the plethora of de rigueur elements together, and mismanages the whole affair. You have all kinds of messy stuff, and an absence of any really compelling myth to bind it together, or even to effectively humanize the characters. You have John Hurt striving valiantly to imbue each scene he works with warmth and sensitivity, but he fails against the tide of bad overall conception/development. Suddenly, Wood is dallying with his hostess' daughter. Where did that come from? Then, she's mad at him for arriving home late. Was she expecting him? Later, she apologizes, and they seem to have arrived at some kind of cozy platonic status quo. Why? And she plays the cello. Uh, are we supposed to assume that an interest in contemporary orchestral ensemble work functions as a hedge against emotional irrelevancy? This was all fast, senseless, and just one example of many, many instances where presumably emotionally resonant moments float in a mutually disconnected vacuum. And speaking of resonant moments, it's possible that some directorial stringency might have redeemed the script somewhat, though I'm not sure. It appears to be a case where the director accepted the script as-is, directed individual scenes as best as possible, then handed the footage over to editing; maybe they could make sense where he couldn't. There really seemed to be only the faintest glimmer of an understanding of any kind of move toward a redemptive overall storyline. I guess I'm saying that the narrative buck needed to have stopped with the narrators, but instead got passed, ineffectually, along the line in the process, until we see the buck being passed right out our screens and into our laps: The narrators didn't know what they were after--or didn't have the craft to pull it off--could the director handle it? The director couldn't handle it; could the editors make up for the oversight? The editors tried as best they could; if they can't make gold out of shite footage, could the viewer kindly oblige and dig something meaningful out of this morass of disconnected emoting interlaced with disconnected pedantry? By now, I think you get the idea. Seriously: If you're an aspiring screenwriter, WATCH THIS MOVIE. I daresay it's a textbook case. I'm just having one more thought. It is *just possible* that the script is OK, but we're actually witnessing a combination of bad direction and editing mangling it. I would guess it's unlikely, but it *is* possible.

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