Great cinematography, terrific acting and moving story. It is very relatable to today's bigotry to the changes. Though the movie kinda depict Christians in bad terms (with them seem to be the most fundamentalist and destructive), it also shows that even the most "intellectual" ones, the pagans, are not sinless from the guilt of bigotry (shown early in the movie). Under the pretext of "absolute truth", whether it's god or science, anyone can be a bigot, similar to today's debate of the pious vs the godless.

WARNING: THIS FILM EVOKED A RANT. If you ever doubted that there was a war between science and faith, this movie should be proof. This is a blatant testimony of secular humanists - that all belief systems and people of faith are ultimately evil and only the sciences and the great thinkers are pure. Their belief in tolerance has become intolerant. And the saddest part of all is that our society is swallowing this belief system hook line and sinker. We've trained our children in it. Our culture has elevated its brilliant academics and scientist to sainthood, whitewashing their vices, and refusing to see their propensity to self-destruction, hubris and dismissal of any other conclusions than their own (the very antithesis of free thought). I say this as a person educated in secular humanist thought and granted degrees by such institutions who is a person increasingly convinced that they are as intolerant to faith as they say faith is to them. What they don't see is that their science has become a religion, too, and if they are consistent in their prejudices they will see that their religion is dangerous and will support inhuman crimes against people who hold anything dearer than what they espouse. To support this religion of science, all faith based belief systems are misrepresented and vilified, as are the Christians and Jews in this movie. Did Alexandra fall? Yes. Was this a great loss to humanity? Yes. Were there wars between factions? Has there ever not been? These are more rightly seen as social politics than religion. Humans are flawed. They are not worthy gods. How many times do we have to see that we are the victims of our baser instincts? To put your faith in the supremacy of human thought or human nature is to miss the testimony of history. I chose to put my faith in something greater than humanity and I think history is on my side. OK, rant over, now back to the movie. You can see what I think of the theme and storytelling (its misleading and ultimately dangerous). I thought the acting was good, and the plot tensions were real. All in all it was a good production. I just think its underlying assumptions are dangerous and evil. For production alone I give it a 7 (good) out of 10. [Historically biased drama]

I was a little disappointed in this as I had been looking forward to watching it for some time. And I love this period in history. Alejandro Amenábar has done some excellent work and Rachel Weisz is so beautiful she has always been one of my favorite actresses to watch. But it was just a typical epic really. I didn't connect much with it. Too much gloss. Too many relying on cliche and wooden lines. It's entertaining enough but there are better films around regarding this time in history..

A female astronomer in the midst of the empire's decline.

as someone who studies religions, philosophy, religions, cults.. watch how truly evil the Christian cult is in this brilliant movie about Hypatia