"12 Years a Slave" lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor has left critics raving about the film, which will surely be nominated for many awards.
Also starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Quvenzhané Wallis, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt and Benedict Cumberbacth just to name few members of the star-studded cast. It has received 25 perfect reviews, according to MetaCritic.com.
It is the must see movie of the year. Check out what reviewers had to say about the new flick below.
Rolling Stone magazine gives the movie four stars:
"'12 Years a Slave' starts its true story in 1841 when Solomon Northup (British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor), a violin player living free in New York with his wife and children, gets tricked into a job in Washington, D.C., and then winds up as human chattel in the Deep South. Solomon's memoir was published in 1853, eight years before the Civil War. Ancient history? Only if you believe that freedom has lost its fragility in the modern world. McQueen, a conceptual artist born in London to West Indian parents, sure as hell doesn't.
His cinematic gut punch looms like a colossus over the Mandingo-Mammy-fixated drivel that passes as muckraking in Hollywood. Working with African-American screenwriter John Ridley, McQueen makes it impossible to regard slavery from the safe remove of TV screens (Roots), Hollywood sugarcoating (Gone With the Wind) and Tarantino satire (Django Unchained). This prickly renegade restores your faith in the harsh power of movies. You don't just watch 12 Years a Slave. You bleed with it, share its immediacy and feel the wounds that may be beyond healing."
The Washington Post also gives the film four stars:
"At it most profound, though, "12 Years a Slave" is a captivating study in humanity at its most troubled and implacable, as Ejiofor masterfully portrays Northup's fight to retain his dignity and identity within an ever-widening nightmare. As such, McQueen's film deserves pride of place alongside 'Gravity,' 'Captain Phillips' and the upcoming 'All Is Lost' as a breathtaking, ambitious essay on physical and existential isolation. Arguably, the stakes here are higher, not just for Northup, but for the viewers who find themselves caught up in his wrenching journey. It's improbable that anyone will feel lighter after watching '12 Years a Slave,' but they're likely to find that their moral imaginations have been newly liberated."
RottonTomatoes.com users chime in with their critics:
"12 Years a Slave, British director Steve McQueen's antebellum Southern drama, sets a new standard in realistically depicting American slavery," Liam Lacey said,
Globe and Mail.
"A masterful film that's brutal, thought-provoking and undeniably affecting, 12 Years a Slave nakedly depicts the inhumanity and hopelessness of American slavery, and at the same time chronicles the perseverance, and resilience, of the human spirit," Todd Gilchrist said, Comic Book Resources.
