Nelson Mandela gets the Classics Illustrated treatment with this handsome, undemanding biopic (2013). The filmmakers cram in as many major episodes from the subject’s life and career as possible, reducing the complex history of the anti-apartheid movement to a series of blunt, decisive moments. Mandela registers as little more than the embodiment of enlightened values—at times this feels like a superhero movie in historical drag. Director Justin Chadwick strives for the stolid, museum-piece approach of Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, as if that were a good thing; with Idris Elba and Naomie Harris. In English and subtitled Afrikaans and Xhosa.
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
PG-13 • 2 hours 19 min • 2013
