Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

begob An ancient philosopher resists the rise of religious mania, but her followers give in to temptation as the forces of evil close in.One of the great episodes in all history, when power, faith and reason came together in an explosion of cruelty and hatred. As another reviewer put it, the moment the dark ages began. This production doesn't quite do the story justice, but it does mix the elements with style and passion and sketches out the historical record in good faith. I did wonder how brutal the ending would be, and the director chose to ease the passing - was that wise?The locations and sets are fascinating, giving a feel for the legendary city while preserving the sense of decay and ruin, and the themes are presented with as much visual flair as possible. There are several set pieces that drive home the depravity of urban rioting, but before that kicks off there's a stodgy opening act, which left me restless and unengaged. Some have criticised the script, but I can't see any obvious way to have improved on it. Maybe a big production like this needs a bit of luck to succeed, or ... divine intervention.The performances are solid, the most vivid coming in the part of Cyril, the vengeful bishop. The photography and music have great sweep, and the editing keeps the pace clipping along - although the first half hour lacks something. There's a fair amount of geometric symbolism, and I'm sure I missed most of its significance, so this should be worth re-watching.Overall: Impressive drama that just fails to hit the spot.

SnoopyStyle It's 4th century AD Alexandria. It is still a Roman city but Christians are a new force to deal with. The empire is crumbling. Hypatia (Rachel Weisz) is a modern woman scientist and teacher with modern views of astronomy. Her student Orestes (Oscar Isaac) and her slave Davus (Max Minghella) are both in awe of her. Christians are hated and put down by most Romans. Hypatia tries to be treat everyone equally. The Christian agitator Ammonius converts Davus. Orestes tries to win Hypatia over but she rejects him. The Romans rally to kill the Christians for an insult to the gods, but it turns into an all out fight. The Romans retreat to the library. First there is an uneasy truce. The library is sacked. Peace generally returns but Christians continue to agitate. Learning is lost. Fanatism and zealotry descend on the community. Religious intolerance reign. Hypatia tries to advance learning but her place in the world becomes more and more precarious.Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar is taking on a lesser known historical drama. For the most religious viewers, this will seem like a diatribe against Christianity. There is certainly a distaste for religious rigidity. This is more of a history lesson. The science is interesting but probably not compelling for the general public. What this movie needs more than anything is humanity. The movie basically displaces human love with love of science. Rachel Weisz is playing this character so coldly. And I don't like the pulling back of the camera to a global view. It distances the audience from the characters. It does get heavy handed. The story works just enough and unique enough to be worthwhile viewing.

theamayafamily Where does one begin to take to task this fictional diatribe against Christians and the early Imperial Church. Alexandria was known to be a city that often was embroiled in heated riots that cost lives even before the Common Era and the advent of the Church. The film portrays the Christian church of the period to be violently intolerant and zealously misogynistic in their religious zeal and ensconced in superstition. The events in the film never happened. In 48 BCE, it was Julius Caesar (a pagan) who invaded Egypt and destroyed part of the Alexandrian library in his war against Pompey. Strabo, a pagan historian, who died around 23 CE, spoke of the main library as a thing of the past. What was left of this main library was probably destroyed in Aurelius' wars of Imperial unification when the Great Museum to which the main library was adjunct in 272 CE. By 391 CE, the library was not in existence. Yet, many post 18th century scholars and historians state that Christians destroyed the temple under the direction of Bishop Theophilus' in 391 CE confusing clashes between pagans and Christians as part and parcel of the main library's destruction. This is a clear untruth and what is sad it is a deliberate one at that.However, in 391 CE, the Serapeum was destroyed. Christians were captured and murdered in the temple of this secondary library by pagans. Since the murdered Christians were to be considered martyrs there was a call for restraint so as not to taint their sacrifice so there was no riot or clash. The Emperor Theodosius ordered the complex to be demolished while letting the murderers go free. The Christians were allowed under Roman governmental oversight to participate in the dismantling of the temple but no other structures were harmed. Additional damage to the building itself probably took place in 7th century by Muslim invaders. However, there was no burning of the library's collection by Christians. Both a goodly number of Christian and pagan accounts of that day exist and there is not one mention of such a burning of the library's collection. Even Eunapius of Sardi who had no great love for Christianity makes no such claim and there are even hints that by this time the secondary library had no collection. Pagan historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, describes the Serapeum as being no longer a library just a few years before its destruction. There is not one written source before the 18th century that has claimed that Christians were responsible for either the collection's destruction for either the main or secondary library nor is there any other evidence proving such. The idea that Christians and the Church were responsible for destroying the Library(ies) of Alexandria in 391 CE is a fiction made up by English historian Edward Gibbon in the 18th century.As to the murder of the brilliant Platonic philosopher, trained scientist, and author of mathematical commentaries, Hypatia. While a woman of note, there is no record of her making any important contributions to her fields of expertise. Just as the recent Cosmos series totally mislead its viewership concerning Giardano Bruno, this movie (and so many others) have created a fictional heroine to dovetail with the fictional history of banal, anti-intellectual Christians on a murderous rampage against pagans especially one pagan woman. Hypatia, who was sixty at the time, was indeed murdered and dismembered, by a Christian fraternity founded to help the poor. She was killed not because she was a woman (female intellectuals were not uncommon in Eastern Empire in either pagan or Christian circles) or a philosopher/scientist (this class of people in Alexandria included both pagans, Jews, and Christians and there was no Christian prejudice against science or philosophy). Hypatia was not perceived as an enemy of the Christian faith and counted many of the educated Christians of Alexandria as her friends, many of whom were students. The Christian historian Socrates, who admired her, states that she was killed because she embroiled herself in a political war between the Imperial prefect and the city's patriarch and it was the denizens of the city's slums that took matters into their own hands without any Church approval (even though the movie lays the blame at the feet of St. Cyril of Alexandria) and was more about her social class and standing and belonging to the wrong side of a political war where this murderous mob was concerned. While the higher, educated classes participated in each other's lives no matter their religious and philosophical differences, the lower classes before and after Christianity's advent were tribal and violent. These Christian lower-class denizens could be rightly compared to Europe's soccer hooligans and the cross was simply one more banner to wave. Such is the truth while the movie and its attempt to paint the Christian Church as a violent, banal, intolerant, and misogynistic community is anti-Christian propaganda and a deliberate lie.

ashleybmeyer Great movie but it's not really *about* Hypatia. As in, the protagonist is not Hypatia. We switch between experiencing the three lead male characters' reactions to her and feelings about her. Rarely are the scenes and interactions about understanding Hypatia's mind or views or feelings; just understanding how her personality and actions effect the mind and feelings of the men around her. Her character is actually sort of just a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.It's a shame that the best movie about the first well-known female scientist can still fail the Bechdel Test. I'm not sure if there was even a single other female character in this film (other than extras). And while this movie is a remarkably accurate depiction of the historic events of Byzantine Alexandria, of the Christian population gaining influence and forcing women out of the aristocracy, this film's protagonists and target audience are men, and female viewers have little to relate to in the interactions of the characters.