Netflix is kicking off the new year with a big name in a great adaptation. The Pale Blue Eye (arriving Friday, January 6, 2023) finds Christian Bale leading a murder mystery as a detective in the 1830s, who happens to be assisted by young Edgar Allen Poe.
More adaptable than the movie that dropped last week (White Noise arrived with an appropriate amount of skepticism and skepticism), The Pale Blue Eye isn’t a movie for two. Far from it, in fact, that Bale and co-star Harry Melling (who some may remember as Dudley Dursley from the Harry Potter films), an all-star team, were helped.
Among those actors are Gillian Anderson (the Netflix alum from Sex Education), musician and actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, MCU vet Toby Jones and even Robert Duvall.
But none of the above answers the question you are likely to be wondering. So let’s find out if you should watch The Pale Blue Eye from Netflix. If not, well, the Netflix mysteries aren’t right now where there’s always Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – we’ve seen it twice, and we can attest that it’s one of the best movies on Netflix.
What is a pale blue eye all about?
At the United States Military Academy at West Point, Winter finds a series of murders that need to be solved. Christian Bale stars as Detective Augustus Landor, leading this adaptation of Louis Bayard’s novel of the same name.
Landor has arrived with a reputation for getting answers with his heartwarming nature, and he’s here to find out if a student actually hanged himself – since he was found that way. The Academy believes this is not the case, due to particularly grim details about Foreshadowing Heart.
Melling’s Poe is a student at the Academy, and Landor needs his help searching for information among his peers. A book has been found that refers to a supernatural game, and the answers don’t seem particularly simple.
All with a backdrop of icy upstate New York—and more deaths after the one that brought Landour to the scene.
The Pale Blue Eye reviews: What the critics say
At the time of writing this story, The Pale Blue Eye has accumulated a 60% score on the review aggregation site Rotten tomatoes (Opens in a new tab). Going through the reviews, this score translates to “There’s a good movie here, but it’s not perfect.
In terms of what the critics liked, Richard Roeper in Chicago Sun Times (Opens in a new tab) He praises Bell’s performance, writing “U.S [the audience] Believe every inch of his image. Even when writer-director Cooper’s adaptation of Louis Bayard’s acclaimed novel takes some insanely big dramatic twists and doesn’t always connect, Bale sinks in his performance—just as forcefully as he quietly reveals a haunting moment from his past or explodes with earth-shattering rage.”
Watchman (Opens in a new tab)Peter Bradshaw didn’t have much criticism of the film, but called The Pale Blue Eye an “entertaining piece of counter-fact.” and the News agency (Opens in a new tab)Mark Kennedy wrote that “the film has some strange jumps and seems to come to a fiery conclusion – finally some warmth, good God – but it’s a false ending. Much better awaits it, one unexpected and deeply satisfying. Stay tuned until the end – as long as you’re bundled up.”
As for the naysayers, David Rooney Hollywood Reporter (Opens in a new tab) He writes that his “story-telling is incoherent and uninterrupted” before stating that the “clearly fiery, anticlimactic conclusion of the investigation makes it clear that more discoveries are yet to come”.
Courtney Howard av club (Opens in a new tab) He declared, “The relentlessly bleak material fails to deliver more than a straight kill unit with frustrating revelations that rely on frustrating gimmicks. We don’t see the biggest twist coming – and as it turns out, that’s the problem.” In its graded review C.
Should you stream The Pale Blue Eye on Netflix?
How much does Christian Bale enjoy doing what Christian Bale does best? Love seeing an established actor in a performance and you’re about to take on a winter mystery? The pale blue eye certainly seems to deserve attention.
But what is interesting is how little I have read of Mr. Melling’s performance. Dudley Dursley once gets feedback here and there that his performance is adequate, but going The Pale Blue Eye and expecting too much from Poe seems like a bad plan.
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