Terrible disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (9 February 2014)

What happened to Steve McQueen, the talented director of Hunger and Shame ? He completely trivialized himself with 12 Years a Slave, putting aside everything that made his previous movies so singular.
He delivers a completely asepticized movie, formatted for the mass — and probably the members of the Academy — with ultra clichés shots far from what we were used to and a grandiloquent soundtrack by Hans Zimmer that seems like a re-edition of the one from Inception.
If at least the scenario was surgically precise, but that's not even the case. The narration is laborious and that just emphasizes as the movie goes, the last half-hour is particularly chaotic, scenes follow one another with not much coherence.
The film doesn't have the dramatic dimension of the true story on which it relies on, as poignant as Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance, the only actor to stand out within a fancy but under-exploited cast.
12 Years a Slave turns out to be a terrible disappointment in comparison with what we were expecting from a talented director.