Mini Film Review – Luther: The Fallen Sun

Yesterday I watched Luther: The Fallen Sun; and it was alright! Directed by Jamie Payne, and starring Idris Elba, Andy Serkis, and Cynthia Erivo; Luther: The Fallen Sun is a crime thriller film, and a continuation of the Luther TV Series, which sees the return of John Luther, having to both breakout of prison, and catch a mass murderer, who has found a unique way to target his victims! I personally really enjoyed the TV series, and this has been on my to do list for some time. Disappointingly however the film doesn’t really serve as much of a continuation, as it completely forgets to wrap up where the last episode of Luther finished, or the events leading up to them; instead deciding to completely ignore it, and move on. The film is an interesting one to decode, as it carries the hallmarks of the TV series, with an outstanding, near unique villain from Serkis, whilst also highlighting Luther’s struggles, with being himself. The film features several brutal fight scenes, with the prison riot being the highlight. But, the film struggles with nearly everything else; creating constant moral mazes for the lead to run around, and dragging more and more people into it. The film struggles in that it’s a film. Here it comes across more as an extended episode of the show, and features so much backstory, there is no way it can unwrap so much within it’s run-time. If it had stuck to it’s original format as a TV show, then potentially it could have really delved deeper, and led to it’s shocking conclusion, whilst also allowing plenty of time to develop it’s newer characters. I think making a film of Luther could have been a really good idea, but here it feels like they decided to do one, without any real plan, and made it just for the sake of making it. Yes, it does have it’s plus points, but there’s just too much stuff here, for one; two hour movie!