Fall of an
Empire: The Story of Katherine of Alexandria *
Dir: Michael Redwood. With: Nicole Keniheart,
Peter O’Toole, Joss Ackland, Steven Berkoff. 110 mins. Cert: 15.
Here’s one of those
bizarro Sunday projects the British film industry emits with baffling
regularity: a foolhardy attempt to revive the Roman epic in Cyprus on a budget
Xena: Warrior Princess might have snarled at. Some logistical nous lurks behind
its rhubarbing barbarians, but it’s almost eerily lacking in drama or
spectacle: gathered old boys (Berkoff, Ackland, O’Toole) and Sam Beckinsale
from London’s Burning enter and exit,
declaiming from a none-too-rigorous script while keeping one eye on the
production accountant. Casting scuppers its proposal of Katherine [sic] as a
revolutionary thinker: novice Nicole Keniheart’s super-awkward, slow-motion
line delivery suggests she might need help doing the wordsearch.
Fall of an Empire opens in selected cinemas from Monday.
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