The series is at its best when it’s simply and uncritically throwing back to ’60s spy fantasy.
Director Anders Thomas Jensen’s empathy for his characters gradually impedes his imagination.
It spends a lot of time considering the fear of knowing, which may explain why Alejandro Amenábar didn’t seem to know what kind of film he was making.
The film can’t reconcile Ron Rash’s apocalyptic tenderness with its own eagerness to revel in romantic star allure.
For all the emphasis placed on the thick bonds among these men, it’s surprising how often they communicate solely through exposition.
The film is a lugubrious, elongated study of forced prostitution and political lechery.
The film attempts to punch up its anodyne tale of forbidden romance among members of the 18th-century Danish court with a few quirky and philosophical touches.
This is really nothing more than the story of girls running to and from their daddies, and no matter how you dress it up, it’s inherently retrograde.
Though rich in ambiguity and a generalized sense of apprehension, the film almost entirely avoids that spy-movie staple: the explosive set piece.
It fails both as a study of homoerotic undercurrents in fascist enclaves and as a contemporary portrait of machismo and the closet.
The film is a twee Danish comedy that alternates trite New Age psychological moves with outbursts of cartoonish violence.
Pernille Fischer Christensen joylessly scrubs Soap clean of sudsy silliness until all that remains is von Trier-ian starkness.