Conclave – 6.5

Visually sumptuous–those cardinals’ robes plus the Sistine Chapel!–but the story and characters never grabbed me. Ralph Fiennes was all anguish and emotion, making me long for Anthony Hopkins. John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci and comparable Italian and African(?) stars just made me wonder what they were doing at the Vatican. The plot, too, was cardboard thin, drama I couldn’t care about and an ending that was fun, but not particularly deserved. The idea that the cardinals were “sequestered” seemed to mean that Fiennes could look for the outside information he wanted, but not the rest.