Johnny Depp’s New Movie With Robert Pattinson Is Out This Weekend, Here’s What The Critics Think
While theaters may be closed, we're actually seeing more than a few new movies coming out this week, and one of the more interesting has to be Waiting for the Barbarians. The new movie hitting Blu-ray and VOD stars Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, and Mark Rylance and with a cast like that, you'll certainly want to stand up and take notice. And the cast, by most accounts, is solid, though there are some other issues here that might be dealbreakers for some viewers.
Waiting for the Barbarians is based ed on the novel of the same name by J.M. Coetzee, who also handled the screenplay, and it deals with an unnamed outpost in a fictional Empire where Mark Rylance's character is trying to keep his head down and do his job when Johnny Depp's Colonol shows up and starts looking for terrorists. The lack of detail about who these people are, who are the colonizers and who are the colonized, is clearly intended to get a point across, but there are some differences among critics as far as how successful that message is.
The San Francisco Chronicle praises most of the performances, but does so more or less in a vacuum, as the reviewer found the film to be overly long and full of material that was simply unnecessary, though he wouldn't want to tell the screenwriter that...
And while Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson may put forward solid performances in Waiting for the Barbarians, the problem with that, according to Flickering Myth, is that neither of them is actually in the movie very much. If you're watching the movie for them you'll likely be disappointed, which might be too bad because there is more to appreciate in the film...
A movie like Waiting for the Barbarians certainly has a message to get across. So much of the movie is so paper-thin, the characters have little depth, the setting is no descript. All to make way for the allegory of it all. A story like that isn't going to work for everybody but as Movie Nation says, if that is your bag, you'll appreciate Waiting for the Barbarians...
Of course, as Punch Drunk Critics points out, the allegory may hit a little close to home for some...
Waiting for the Barbarians isn't an obvious hit, but neither is it a failure. Clearly people will need to watch this one and draw their own conclusions as this looks like a movie that will work for some but will bore others.
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CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis. Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.