davidgee

Conclave has attracted 4- and 5-star reviews, so I expected it to be good, and it is. The recreated Sistine Chapel is glorious and, bursting with red-robed cardinals, I got a few flashbacks to TV's Handmaids. Ralph Fiennes is Cardinal Lawrence, the Dean, charged with chairing the election of a new Pope; Stanley Tucci is his closest ally and John Lithgow his nemesis. All three are on top form, as is everybody in the cast. Only a handful of nuns are allowed to attend to the cardinals, so no big female parts, although Isabella Rossellini is given a key speech and is still a radiant beauty at 72.

Robert Harris writes great thrillers, and the screenplay keeps all the conspiracy elements, so that a very "talky" tale has tension all the way and moments of great excitement. If you haven't read the book, I think the climax will surprise you; it knocked me for six.

The actors and all concerned should be grateful that the Vatican no longer issues the Papal equivalent of a "fatwa". It used to.

First the good news: as sequels go, this is better than most. And the way the screenplay slowly increases the links to the Russell Crowe version is quite neatly done. The bad news: almost everything is in a kind of desperate overdrive. Rome is now ruled by two psychotic emperors, one of whom carries an annoying pet monkey everywhere he goes (I'm a pushover for cuddly animals, but I so wanted the monkey to die!). The overacting gladiator owner/trainer (Denzel Washington) has an overacting chum/rival in the Senate (Tim McInnerny, playing a hysterical version of Blackadder's Captain Darling: and the Award for Best Overacting goes to ... Tim). The giant CGI tigers in the Colosseum have been replaced by giant CGI feral apes and a rhinoceros.

This is movie Two, so there are twice as many gladiator fights and twice as many sea battles. Paul Mescal does a brave job stepping into Russell Crowe's sandals, but although he's younger and cuter and more buff, his Lucius lacks the solidity and the gravitas that Crowe brought to Maximus. The sets, whether they're CGI or fibreboard, are almost worthy of Liz Taylor's CLOPATRA, but tight as it is, the script is too long. There is twice the violence of Part One, but there isn't twice the resonance. We're often told that Less is More; here More is quite a lot Less.

The casting of Hugh Grant and the religious debating are clearly intended to give Heretic some extra "gravitas", which works in the Upstairs chapter of the story, but Downstairs is a dark and dismal place where the movie and Mr Reed descend into Torture Porn, where so many modern horror movies take us.

Perhaps Grant is tired of playing charm and smarm or likeably roguish, but I found myself recalling some of the awful films Bette Davis and Joan Crawford made in their twilight years; obviously I exclude their joint appearance in the gloriously camp BABY JANE classic. HERETIC is not destined to become a camp classic. Casting Grant elevates Mr Reed, but I'm not sure that playing Reed elevates Mr Grant.