When Idris Elba originated the damaged, maverick copper of the title, in 2011, he quickly assumed a pleasing Sherlock Holmes-Moriarty two-step with Ruth Wilson’s clever, eyelash-batting psychopath. Five increasingly lacklustre series and multiple international remakes later, Luther is reborn as a big-budget Netflix movie.
The best James Bond we never had has just enough charisma to hold our attention through this weirdly truncated, dopey thriller. Between a brief introduction to a new chief (Cynthia Erivo) and a reintroduction to the old one (Dermot Crowley) we blitz through the detective’s trial, arrest and imprisonment, a swift montage that has somehow happened at the behest of Andy Serkis’s megavillain, Robey.
Sporting a hairpiece that suggests Lassie curled on to his head for a nap, Robey appears to have absolute control over the internet and thus access to enough deep, dark secrets to force his victims to do extraordinary things, including jumping to their deaths and spying within the Metropolitan Police. Remember Kevin Spacey in Seven? He’s that with “cyber” as the prefix.
[ Idris Elba: ‘Man, talk about work as therapy. I would break down on set’Opens in new window ]
Some of the plot points pass the time. There’s a prison break and a spectacular drive from frozen Estonia as Luther makes his way to the evildoer’s icy lair. Mostly, the writing, by the series creator Neil Cross, is uneven. The supporting cast in a video game is afforded better development than many actors have to shoulder here. And by video game we’re not talking about The Last of Us; we mean the bat in Pong. Even Elba’s soulful Luther has to throw Gotham City-sized shapes.
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It seems churlish to complain that a film about a global serial killer is unnecessarily brutal and nasty. But between blackmail victims splatting on the pavements of Piccadilly Circus to bodies frozen under snowy lakes, Luther: The Fallen Sun is as distasteful as it is silly.
Luther: The Fallen Sun is on general release and on Netflix
