If you want to give a great actor a role he can sink his teeth into with almost unseemly glee, there can’t be many better ways than to cast him as a critic in a period melodrama. That, at least, seems to be the idea behind “The Critic,” Anand Tucker’s tale of a nefarious theater reviewer in 1930s London starring Ian McKellen as the kind of awful person who must have been a lot of fun to play.
It is not, perhaps, a role that would challenge the magnificent McKellen much, but who needs a challenge when you can spit out viciously witty bon mots while wearing fancy duds and being lit at all times for maximum dramatic effect? And while McKellen’s Jimmy Erskine is a villain to remember, he isn’t a one-dimensional baddie. He’s a proudly gay man who can be arrested for who...
It is not, perhaps, a role that would challenge the magnificent McKellen much, but who needs a challenge when you can spit out viciously witty bon mots while wearing fancy duds and being lit at all times for maximum dramatic effect? And while McKellen’s Jimmy Erskine is a villain to remember, he isn’t a one-dimensional baddie. He’s a proudly gay man who can be arrested for who...
- 9/11/2023
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
This critic might want to look for a different job.
The prospect of seeing the great Ian McKellen take on the role of one of London’s most august theater critics of the 1930s must have looked tantalizing on paper, but sadly this is a show that deserved to close out of town. Despite a colorful central character who could have knowledgeably and amusingly navigated a cruise through the dynamic theatrical scene close to a century ago, The Critic unaccountably shifts its focus away from McKellen’s Jimmy Erskin, who entertainingly dominates the film at the start, and onto a group of characters who are almost entirely uninteresting; there’s not even much juicy inside stuff about the legit theater at an exciting time for it. Given the setting, period and endless possibilities of the material, this is a major disappointment, a drag of the first order.
The only scenes...
The prospect of seeing the great Ian McKellen take on the role of one of London’s most august theater critics of the 1930s must have looked tantalizing on paper, but sadly this is a show that deserved to close out of town. Despite a colorful central character who could have knowledgeably and amusingly navigated a cruise through the dynamic theatrical scene close to a century ago, The Critic unaccountably shifts its focus away from McKellen’s Jimmy Erskin, who entertainingly dominates the film at the start, and onto a group of characters who are almost entirely uninteresting; there’s not even much juicy inside stuff about the legit theater at an exciting time for it. Given the setting, period and endless possibilities of the material, this is a major disappointment, a drag of the first order.
The only scenes...
- 9/10/2023
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
By the time I’m 84 years old, I would hope that I’ve been retired for some time, but that’s not something Ian McKellen is considering.
While speaking with Variety, Ian McKellen said that while he’s constantly reminded of his mortality, he’s in no hurry to quit acting. “Retire to do what?” McKellen said. “I’ve never been out of work, but I’m aware that any minute now something could happen to me which could prevent me from ever working again. But while the knees hold up and the memory remains intact, why shouldn’t I carry on? I really feel I’m quite good at this acting thing now.“
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Although Ian McKellen isn’t considering retiring, he says that a critic who attended previews of his recent stage...
While speaking with Variety, Ian McKellen said that while he’s constantly reminded of his mortality, he’s in no hurry to quit acting. “Retire to do what?” McKellen said. “I’ve never been out of work, but I’m aware that any minute now something could happen to me which could prevent me from ever working again. But while the knees hold up and the memory remains intact, why shouldn’t I carry on? I really feel I’m quite good at this acting thing now.“
Related Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net: The Batman, Gandalf, King Kong, Pulp Fiction, Robocop
Although Ian McKellen isn’t considering retiring, he says that a critic who attended previews of his recent stage...
- 9/9/2023
- by Kevin Fraser
- JoBlo.com
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