David Livingstone: A bit too much Sunday School

Is this thing worth your time?

Honestly, only if you have a very specific itch for old-school, ultra-polite British filmmaking. If you’re looking for high drama or anything that feels remotely dangerous, you will probably hate it. It’s a movie that values looking respectable above almost everything else.

It’s the kind of film that thinks showing someone reading a map intensely is the peak of action. Charles Doe gives it his all as Livingstone, but the script is so committed to being a saintly biography that he never really gets to be a person. He just kind of wanders through the jungle being noble.

I found myself zoning out during the dialogue-heavy stretches in the mission stations. Everyone speaks in these perfectly formed paragraphs, which is just not how people talk, even in the 19th century. It felt like watching a stage play through a keyhole.

There is a weirdly specific moment where Livingstone is supposed to be lost in the wilderness, but the lighting is so bright and even that it looks like he’s just standing in a local park on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s hard to buy into the stakes when the 'unexplored' Africa looks like someone’s backyard. 🌳

• The costumes are surprisingly clean for a guy trekking across a continent.
• The pacing is glacial. Seriously, you could make a sandwich between some of these scene transitions.
• There's a complete lack of grit.

If you compare this to something like The Fight, it’s like night and day. Where that film has a sense of kinetic movement, this just sits there. It’s very still. Maybe too still.

I kept waiting for a moment of doubt or a messy character flaw to break through the surface. It never really happens. Everything is just so tidy. Even the encounters with local tribes feel weirdly sanitized, like the director was terrified of saying anything that might ruffle a feather in 1936.

At one point, Livingstone is staring off into the distance, and the camera lingers on his face for so long that I started counting the seconds. I think it was about fifteen. Why? It doesn't tell us anything new. It just fills time.

Ultimately, it’s a relic. If you’re a fan of old biopics, you might appreciate the craft, but I was left wanting something with a pulse. It’s a bit like eating dry toast—it’s technically food, but it’s not exactly a meal you’d brag about.