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The Oxford Murders (2008)

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11 comments in total

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12 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
A worth seeing mystery movie, 19 janvier 2008

Author: efewebber de www.efeweb.es

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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2 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Excellent adaption of the short story, 25 avril 2008

Author: duncan-lip de United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

For those who haven't read the Oxford Murders, it is a short story about an Argentinean maths student who comes to Oxford only to find that someone has murdered his landlady. The short story delves into mathematical theory in an attempt to solve a series of murders where the murderer leaves symbols, also in a potential series. Being a short story is does lack in depth and this is where this movie has taken this story and expanded on it.

For those who are concerned that maths is not their thing, don't worry. The concepts are very well explained. It would be typical that these complex ideas are overly simplified and patronise the audience, but this is not case.

A very good short story adapted into an excellent steady paced movie.

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1 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Sunday afternoon television..., 25 avril 2008

Author: barnthebarn de Oxford, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

'The Oxford Murders' is utterly ridiculous yet strangely fun. American student Elijah Wood is not the only person here who seems out of his depth and the adaptation would definitely play better as a television drama where expectations might be less. Martin (Wood) admires Arthur Seldom (John Hurt in an exceptional performance - perfectly adrift yet somehow attentive concurrently) so much that he plans his Oxford study around a chance to have Seldom oversee his work. Thus he moves in with Anna Massey, a bitter landlady and friend of Seldom and her daughter Beth (Julie Cox, who looks astonishingly like Wood here with the wide eyes and bone structure). While playing mathematical tennis he meets Lorna (Spanish actress Leonor Watling) who dressed to impress (putting her sweat patches aside) takes an instant like to Martin and he returns the favour. Before long Lorna - who looks a bit like TV show Baywatch's aunt - and Martin are tearing at each other clothes in a way that the film would have you believe people in Oxford never behaved because Oxford is a "stifling city" and the people all a little too serious. Lorna cooks breakfast naked but for an apron fitted to show off her curves though breakfast ends up on her chest anyway. There is a ludicrous and completely pointless subplot - as it adds nothing to the tension -regarding an erratic student who shouts a lot and acts like a killer. There are a few surprises along the way and the oxford footage is good though edited in a way that it barely resembles the real Oxford at times (there are no houses next to The Sheldonian Theatre). The movie does little to advertise Oxford and instead chooses to present it as a separate universe where unpleasant things happen and everyone is slightly nauseating. Unless you are a youthful (and slightly brash) American man then Oxford offers little. If you are like Martin then Oxford might show you your first corpse but will also give you excitement, intrigue and attractive, available women at every turn. An okay film but a true shame that okay was merely the order of the day.

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0 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Math Hypnosis, 2 mai 2008

Author: writers_reign de London, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

It's probably symbolic - and certainly ironic - that before frame one we spend what seems like ten minutes just listing all the production companies involved in the making of this movie. So when we get underway and find ourselves involved in a labyrinthine plot we half expect a Cretan maiden to turn up at any moment and lead us Theseus-like through the maze. At one level the film seems intent on cashing in on the recent spate of math-based movies, Proof, etc, whilst on another it seems to be replicating an inferior episode of Inspector Morse whilst on yet a third it appears aspire to Carry On Sleuthing. Elijah Wood and John Hurt go together like Sinatra and Moog Synthesiser, Anna Massey has been and gone in the first reel and Dominic Pinon wanders in from Amelie to muddy the waters. Strangely enough there are long stretches that are actually watchable but I have a feeling they'll be running down the Mile End Road to give this one the slip.

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1 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Execrable, 27 avril 2008

Author: cpukf de United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This review does contain spoilers.

Although it is difficult to know what could spoil this film as it is already extraordinarily bad. It is truly dreadful. The film opens with Wittgenstein writing a philosophical work called The Tractatus. It is well known that part of this was penned whilst Wittgenstein was fighting on the Eastern front during WW1. In this film they have him sitting cross-legged in No Man's Land scribbling into his notebook. From such an absurdly low starting point it might be thought that the film could only improve but unfortunately this does not happen.

Wittgenstein is only mentioned so that leading academic Arthur Seldom (John Hurt) could engage in some philosophybabble about truth. It is not even good philosophybabble. Everything that purported to be mathematical or logical in this film reminded me of a hospital porter I once knew who had read a couple of books on popular science. After a few pints he would try to impress the nurses with his erudition.

We are asked to believe that Hurt, an expert on logical series, devises a series so mystifying that brilliant American maths student who has travelled specifically to Oxford to work with Seldom cannot work out what it is — although he eventually discovers it in what appears to be a children's book in the local book store. Quite why he had to rush to the local bookstore at closing time and abuse the staff who were asking him to leave when he was a postgraduate at Oxford university and might presumably have used the library like anyone else was not explained.

But then nothing is explained in this film. There is no character development. Each character arrives fully formed, clichéd cardboard cut-outs the lot of them. Lorna (Leona Watling) is largely irrelevant to anything in the film although, fortunately, as a nurse, she does of course know that the Pythagoreans also experimented with organ transplants! Her main role seems to be to provide a sex-scene. In any other film such an obviously gratuitous sequence would have been an irritation but in this film it was a welcome diversion. I suppose if you are going to cook a post-coital meal of spaghetti bolognaise it is sensible to stand at the stove wearing nothing but a plastic apron — although she probably wouldn't have bothered if she had known that Martin (Elijah Wood) was, moments later, going to take a handful of the stuff and drop it onto her breasts.

There are many films with a completely ludicrous story line that have been saved by a clever and witty script. There is nothing clever or witty about the script of this film. There isn't a single believable conversation at any point in the film. Everyone just stands around delivering exposition or pseudo-intellectual nonsense. Jim Carter, playing Inspector Peterson, must be delivering the worst lines of his career. They wouldn't have been so bad if this film had been a spoof whodunit. The direction is ponderous. There is no pace, there is no momentum. An occasional surge in the music, even when accompanied by fireworks (yes, the score is as clichéd as everything else in this film), fails to generate the least excitement.

For a film that is meant to be about a logical puzzle it is unfortunate that it doesn't even hang together on its own terms. At one point Seldom tells the police that before he finds the body he had received a note from the mysterious serial killer but threw the note away. Indeed, we see him throw the note away. Sadly, we later discover there is no serial killer and he is making it all up — so why was there any note to throw away? A crucial point towards the end of the film (if a film this bad can have any crucial points) is when Martin discovers there is nothing written on the napkin. It is explained that Seldom had to carry out this deceit so that he could convince Martin that he knew what the next symbol in the series was going to be even though he didn't really know. Quite apart from the fact that the series of symbols turns out to be trivial it also transpires that Seldom is making the whole thing up so it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

If the film says anything at all, it says that small and apparently inconsequential things can have a large a dramatic effect on the outcome. Yes, yes, as any half aware teenager will be able to tell you it's the butterfly effect. Who knows what consequences this review will have? Hopefully, it will encourage one or two of you to find a more entertaining way of spending your evening.

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2 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Major failures.. or maybe not?, 21 janvier 2008

Author: Felip de Barcelona, Spain

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I respect Alex de la Iglesia for its past work ('El dia de la bestia' is an awesome action movie), but with this film he is too obsessed to make an homage to Hitchcock. The bad thing is that the film lacks any kind of suspense, so the homage turns to somewhat a parody.

It isn't always so hollow. The introduction is interesting and also its 5 minutes' ending. But this mustn't be a good thing. It is well known this decade thrillers' trend to make a last minute plot twist, and though in this film there is a remarkable end ("Are you the butterfly?"), by no means compensates the unthrilling and empty rest of the film, which is nearly all of it. This could be more a problem of the book than the film, anyway.

Besides, the torrid sex scenes doesn't fit at all with the coldness of some actors (Wood), the place (Oxford university), and also the lack of danger that we perceive: there's no a femme-fatale approach to the Watling's character (yes the 'femme', but not the 'fatale'), so in my opinion these scenes doesn't work as expected. This, also, could be more a problem of the book.. or of my prejudices as a viewer.

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4 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Miss Marple morphs in to a hobbit who is inexplicably irresistible to women, 24 janvier 2008

Author: rich de Spain

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The Oxford Murders starts intriguingly enough with a camera shaking introduction to the hell of the first world war. It soon dawns on the viewer that this is a cheap trick, a flashback expensively shot,which is repeatedly employed in the movie to break up the drudgery of the main plot (The Da Vinci Code anyone?). Alex De Iglesias had emerged from the Iberian Peninsula with a reputation of a talented filmmaker, however he forces his darkly comic touches on the "Who Dunnit" format, in a manner that feels absurd. The synopsis of the plot involves Frodo (now fully grown and a mathematical whiz) travelling to Oxford in pursuit of academic excellence and a University lecturer (John Hurt - looking like he's just dropped his last cigarette in the rain as usual) with a differing view of the world through numbers. Cue some of the most action packed Blackboard writing scenes since the excellent "A Beautiful Mind". More unlikely still Frodo appears to be wearing a magic amulet that results in any woman he meets having no issues with the height difference. The amulet also provides Frodo the belief that bad squash players automatically qualify as geniuses (Should that be geni? Anyone help me out?) The University town then provides the backdrop for a series of murders that our intrepid hero seeks to solve through a battle of logic with the professor. I soon questioned my own logic of going to watch this film as I realised that any oft filmed Straight to TV Agatha Christie fare is 10 times as intelligent as this alleged "thriller". I should have watched Alien Vs Predator - at least it knows it's tosh.

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2 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Two and two is four? I'm not even sure anymore …, 29 mars 2008

Author: Coventry de the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

And the Award for most drastic alteration of stylistic trademarks and choice in movies goes to … Alex de la Iglesia! Seriously, if you would watch "The Oxford Murders" without knowing he directed it, you'd never ever be able to make the link with his previous and very recognizable accomplishments, like "Day of the Beasts", "La Communidad", "800 Bullets" and "Perdita Durango". This is a very slow-brooding and atmosphere-driven thriller with an absolute lack of blackly humorous situations; whereas practically all the director's other films are a combination of shocks, thrills and especially pitch-black comedy. Hey, good for him! We ought to applaud filmmakers who're courageous enough to try something entirely new and different. And it also has to be said that "The Oxford Murders" turned out to be quite an absorbing and suspenseful whodunit-thriller with a (too?) convoluted plot, intelligent albeit far-fetched red herrings, copious references towards classic cinematic landmarks as well as historical figures and engaging acting performances from a prominent cast. The script was adapted from a novel written by Guillermo Martinez and – according to an acquaintance of mine who actually read it – the events in the film faithfully follow those in the book. The determined American math whiz kid Martin travels to Oxford University, hoping to meet and work together with his idol; professor Arthur Seldom. The professor rapidly turns out to be an obnoxious bastard who humiliates Martin during a lecture and in front of numerous fellow students. The two are united after all when they discover the body of Martin's brutally murdered landlady together. Whoever the culprit was, he/she left behind a note with mathematical symbols on it, which indicates that the murder was only the beginning of a series. Naturally intrigued by the crime, Martin and Professor Seldom team up to solve the puzzle but, considering the complexity of the mathematic puzzle, they can't prevent the deaths of more victims. Be advised this is just an extremely simplified summary of the plot, as "The Oxford Murders" actually is a non-stop one hundred and something minutes series of incomprehensible math formulas, philosophical theories, amateur-detective speculations and verbal showdowns between an elderly wise guy and a young rookie. The story is overall compelling and never really boring, but sometimes director de la Iglesia dedicates too much time to the extended depiction of small anecdotes that eventually turn out to be fairly irrelevant to the actual plot. The re-enactment of the medieval "perfect crime" killing, for example, where a barber described 14 methods to kill his wife. It's fascinating footage, but only just a dispensable anecdote more likely to raise confusion than to clarify a point. Even though the academic and illuminate mumbo-jumbo sounds impressive and makes you feel sophisticated, you definitely don't have to be a child prodigy in order keep up with the script's pacing and red herrings. The murders are incredibly tame (though for a good reason) and there are very few moments of genuinely grueling terror, with the notable exception of Prof. Seldom's limbless friend and his lobotomy experiments. As to be expected, The Oxford area forms a terrific location to shoot an old-fashioned mystery-thriller. The arty buildings and ancient libraries look grandiose and there's even time for some British history lessons, with the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day. John Hurt is once again sublime in his, by now trusted, role of arrogant elderly smart man and it's truly a joy to behold him when giving lectures. If I had a professor like Hurt when I was in college, I definitely would have attended more classes. Elijah Wood is pretty good as well, but – I'm very sorry – it's still impossible not to see him as the hairy-toed Hobbit looking for a precious ring. He could easily pass for a mathematical mastermind, I guess, but an irresistible womanizer?!? Martin's two love interests Lorna and Beth are charming and honestly affecting female characters. The actresses portraying them, respectively Leonor Watling and Julie Cox, are both heavenly beautiful and very talented women.

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3 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Enjoyable..., 11 février 2008

Author: shkrebs de Spain

First of all, I say that watching a film like this in a dubbed version, where the story is told in Oxford, it's a sin - just like smoking in a cancer hospital...

I went in to see it mainly to enjoy watching a "good old" crime-story like I used to watch from BBC television spoken in "real" English, and though it wasn't 100% then it was enjoyable. I had no idea about who is "Álex de la Iglesia" and I was surprised by how well written and directed the film presented, not only due to the story but as well the actors he'd found, and here more the stand-ins than the main-casts. Perfect details like hopeless out of date shaded glasses, old tweed jackets and semi-long hair, it all gave the final touch to the story that some times got stocked in small unnecessary scenes specially written for selling better to the Spanish marked.

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0 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
poor copy of Morse. Doesn't live up to reviews of Guillermo Martinez's novel, 3 février 2008

Author: Carlos-64 de ES

If you know Morse, I think you'll be disappointed and find too many negative comparisons.

If Álex de la Iglesia could have done better than Morse, he shouldn't have tried a poor imitation. It just didn't work, well, not for me. Of course if you don't know about Morse then you might like this film. Sure there was some good acting and photography, but this film could have been so much better. Also, I think ÁlexI could do with better advisers if he is to try an English-language film again.

The book -- "Los crímenes de Oxford" (translated as "The Oxford Murders" by Sonia Soto) by Guillermo Martinez who has a PhD in maths and even spent a couple of years on post-doc work at Oxford (watching Morse?) -- does seem to have been very well received, even by an Oxford maths don (in The Guardian). So, I/we should pop down to una librería and feast on that.

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