Anthony Hopkins hams it up to the max in Afonso Poyart’s sub-Se7en thrillerIts ham and cheese to proceed from a luxuriantly mulleted Anthony Hopkins in this increasingly foolish serial-killer thriller with a psychic twist. Cruising in default post-Lecter mode (I kept expecting him to tell Abbie Cornish’s FBI agent that she wears LAir du Temps,but not nowadays…), Hopkins plays retired clairvoyant physician Dr John Clancy, or enlisted by Joe Merriwether (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to lay his magic hands on a string of theatrically orchestrated murders. “It’s too early for a hail Mary!” complains Cornish,setting the overripe tone for the endlessly rewritten screenplay (astonishingly, Peter Morgan “polished” this turd), and which was once touted as a potential sequel to Se7en. Fittingly,2 Coelhos director Afonso Poyart goes for sub-Fincher flash throughout, making the whole thing look like a slightly creepy commercial with pop-promo set dressing and risible VFX “visualisations”. “You didn’t see that coming!” declares Hopkins after hitting Colin Farrell in the face with an ashtray. My favourite sequence was a car-chase in which Hopkins channels directions like a psychic sat-nav (‘Left! Left!’)”: from Oscar to TomTom – try washing that down with a nice chianti.
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Source: theguardian.com