Oscar Isaac

Alejandro Amenábar’s historical epic Agora is high-minded and visually pleasing, but doesn’t quite pull itself to maintain an entertaining momentum. It has many of the hallmarks of an epic, from the swelling music, to the sweeping city views, to the main characters ability to meander through surrounding violence unscathed, but the pace is often stalled by wordy monologues and the need to impart information, causing a loss of emotional impact. What we are left with is a story about religious intolerance and the resulting powerlessness of reason....