Dark Matter.

"'Inspired by' the 1991 University of Iowa school shootings, Dark Matter gives a sympathetic picture of its doctorate candidate turned sociopath, Liu Xing (Liu Ye)," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. "Despite overtures toward evenhandedness, Dark Matter's insights go no deeper than 'chickens coming home to roost' banality."

"Dark Matter begins with a shot of Meryl Streep practicing tai chi, and therein lies a precise encapsulation of the film's attitude toward the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures," writes Leo Goldsmith at indieWIRE. "In its 90-minute duration, the film grapples with a number of weighty themes: the origins of the universe, the importing of Chinese scholarly talent by American universities, even the deep causes of incidents of campus violence, like those at Columbine and Virginia Tech. But ultimately, the film's approach to these issues is as suspect as an American movie star going through the motions, however gracefully, of the thirteen postures."

Updated through 4/11.

"Liu Xing is an uncommonly brilliant student of cosmology, and his glibly condescending mentor, Professor Jacob Reiser (Aidan Quinn), realizes this from day one," explains Kate Folk in the L Magazine. "Only when Xing develops a theory that clashes with one of Reiser’s does the relationship sour, and thus begins Xing’s breakneck downward spiral."

[A]side from depicting American academia as a cutthroat environment that can inspire deadly resentment, there's not much going on in Dark Matter, in large part because director Chen [Shi-Zheng] and screenwriter Billy Shebar's script... never truly gets underneath its increasingly troubled protagonist's surface," writes Nick Schager in Slant.

Earlier: Reviews from Sundance.

Updates, 4/10: Meryl Streep "has recently entered her most interesting phase as an actress," argues Armond White in the New York Press. "Streep was the best thing in the fraudulent The Hours, unexpectedly funny and credible in Adaptation, dauntingly fierce in The Manchurian Candidate, authentically officious in Rendition, dazzling and heartfelt in A Prairie Home Companion. Her two most unusual roles are a sell-out journalist in Lions for Lambs and now as a dissembling patroness in Dark Matter."

"Dark Matter has neither the technical command of an art-house film nor the manufactured intensity of a grade-B thriller, yet it's also too cheap and dirty to feel like a Hollywood-scale drama," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "It's an inelegant experiment that captures many intriguing moments as they pass, but ends up utterly baffled by the question of how its delightful central character becomes a tabloid-ready monster."

Updates, 4/11: Dark Matter "is a movie of ideas that does an exemplary job of translating scientific speculation into layman's language," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "The filmmaking style of Mr Chen, an internationally renowned opera director (still best known for his 20-hour Peony Pavilion at Lincoln Center in 1999), is considerably more formal than American audiences are accustomed to. And that formality keeps you at a distance."

"For most of the film, Mr Chen does an admirable job of externalizing Liu Xing's spacey naiveté and alienation through solidly crafted visual conceits, including soft-cut transitions and low-key computer graphic fireworks, of the A Beautiful Mind, genius-at-work variety," writes Bruce Bennett in the New York Sun. "But as the pilgrim slips toward lunacy, the shortcomings of Billy Shebar's script grow apparent."

Posted by dwhudson at April 9, 2008 12:05 PM