An ‘Agora’-phobic reaction: Ham-handed execution makes a joke out of history

If agoraphobia means fear of the marketplace, then "Agora"-phobia is fear of the long-winded sword-and-sandal religious epic.

This "Agora" is an expensive-looking update on an old De Mille-style extravaganza. It has many new and provocative ideas, certainly, but the same British accents and the same stodgy execution.

Speaking of execution: "Agora" stars Rachel Weisz as storied astronomer Hypatia, an aristocrat and philosopher who dazzles students in 4th-century Alexandria with her brilliant ideas about orbits, gravity and the movement of stars, moons and planets.

She has the bad luck to be devoted to rational thought at a time of religious fanaticism - Roman authority is collapsing, leaving a void filled by warring factions of pagans, Jews and Christians.

The first half of the "Agora" deals with the growing Christian movement, a religion that appeals to the city's poor and its slaves. This is borne out in the story of Hypatia's servant Davus (Max Minghella), also her most brilliant student.

Davus is the only man within earshot of Hypatia who can go toe-to-toe with her over Ptolemy. Even so, he comes to view knowledge as a privilege of the elite and is increasingly attracted to Christianity, which grows in power as it ministers to the poor and indentured - for Davus, Christianity is literally a force that may set him free.

The movie's novelty is to depict Christianity in a militant, radical stage - Taliban-like, in fact. The most violent Christian faction defaces the icons of other religions, bullies non-Christians and seeks to replace Roman law with religious law. Their rise to power culminates with the sacking and destruction of Alexandria's library, advocates of reason in full retreat.

The movie's bloody second half depicts a city increasingly dominated by militant Christians, who rule by actual (they convert pagans and purge the city of Jews) or implied threat, and their ultimate target is Hypatia.

Former pupil and prefect (Oscar Isaac) pleads with her to convert, but Hypatia refuses, leading the local Christian leader to brand her as a witch, a virtual death sentence.

This should be a moment of great drama, but ham-fisted handling (a consistent problem in "Agora") instead yields unintended laughs. We see an angry mob clamoring for Hypatia's death and cut to a shot of the troubled astronomer herself, as a servant says, "Something bothering you?"

Even the talented Weisz is saddled with lines she cannot improve. As the library is about to be destroyed, she gathers up scrolls containing the accumulated wisdom of the ages and pleads in vain for assistance: "You can never find a slave when you need one."

There are, evidently, varying degrees of enlightenment.