What an interesting last couple of years Idris Elba has had. Take that statement to mean whatever you please; it’s the truth no matter how you swing it.
Indeed, ever since Heimdall’s demise in Avengers: Endgame, Elba has made his directorial debut with the lukewarmly-received Yardie, left a rousing mark in The Harder They Fall, somehow got roped into Cats‘ antagonist role, and has otherwise found himself at the center of would-be blockbusters like Beast and Three Thousand Years of Longing, as well as some zany genre-fiction in the form of The Suicide Squad and Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
All this to say that, as fun as some of these films are, Elba is in need of a surefire win from the leading role position, and some may have been hoping that Luther: The Fallen Sun would be just that. As fate would have it, the crime thriller couldn’t quite keep up with the otherwise tried-and-true efforts from the actor.
A continuation of the British television series Luther which ran from 2010 to 2019, The Fallen Sun stars Elba as disgraced Detective Chief Inspector John Luther, whose otherwise sensational ability as a detective is marred by his roguish crime-fighting methods. After landing himself in prison, he finds himself tormented both directly and indirectly by the cyber serial killer (Andy Serkis) that he wasn’t able to catch, so Luther does what any good detective would do; busts out of prison to end the killer’s reign of terror once and for all.
Steve Greene of IndieWire believed the film to be too big for its own britches, suggesting that it overstuffed itself and failed to reach its goals in turn.
“Like Luther’s latest nemesis, Luther: The Fallen Sun goes big, and not always in ways that work to its benefit.”
The Hollywood Reporter‘s Frank Scheck was a tad more forgiving, calling the treatment of the IP “satisfactory,” even if it gets ahead of itself more than a few times.
“Luther: The Fallen Sun goes overboard at times — especially in its climactic sequence, featuring a fight in a car submerged in a frozen lake, that feels like something out of a Bond movie (you half expect Jaws to make a guest appearance). But it definitely delivers the goods, making it fairly obvious that DCI John Luther isn’t going away anytime soon.”
And Peter Debruge of Variety couldn’t get behind the script, and also questioned Andy Serkis’ turn as the villain.
“Who knows, maybe they’ll make it worth Elba’s while for passing on Bond in some future installment. But The Fallen Sun is a long way from being the better offer.”
It may be a home-run from Elba himself, but unfortunately, the film itself sounds like something of a slo-pitch.
Luther: The Fallen Sun is currently in the middle of a limited theatrical run, and will release to Netflix on March 10.