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Uncovered
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - uncovered
Uncovered,
Kate beckinsale showed her up and coming talents with this earlier movies in her career.I give it an A.
Rating:  - Entertaining despite the contrived plot
I stumbled across this movie on a DVD rental site and found it to be surprisingly entertaining. For those of you who are familiar with Arturo Perez Reverte's works, this movie is based on his novel titled 'The Flanders Panel' which in itself is a good thriller, though you do have to be familiar with the game of chess as that's crucial to the plot.
This movie contains an early, rather tomboyish Kate Beckinsale, though still very much spirited. She plays an art restorer who finds there's a secret message in a piece of art that she's restoring, a panel that has been in a particular family of noble lineage for 500 years. She enlists the help of her ex-professor/ex-boyfriend Alvaro, played by Art Malik, who later turns up dead, presumably of natural causes. Well, turns out that Alvaro is the first in a series of deaths and Kate's character tries to decipher what's going on, with the help of a street chess player [based on the assumption that the deaths are related to the game of chess depicted in the panel].
Anyway, the story though based on an interesting premise, soon turns out to be contrived, yet that doesn't detract from one's enjoyment of this movie. There are quite a few sexy scenes here, and quite a bit of nudity as well - Kate flashes bits of herself, and sometimes almost all of herself unabashedly, and this is early kate, very young and tomboyish, with a cropped hairstyle, yet displaying the peaches and cream beauty that still defines her today.
The murderer in the story will be quite apparent to most viewers before the ending, yet I would still recommend it for its interesting premise and sexy bits.It might also interest some viewers that another of Arturo reverte's works, titled The Club Dumas was also made into a movie, The Ninth Gate [with Johnny Depp] which is a sort of literary/supernatural thriller.
Rating:  - A guilty pleasure...
This movie is so bad its good. The story is stilted, and not at all complicated. The acting is over the top and the costumes are dreadful. It is however lovely to look at, and might as well be a travel guide to Barcelona, Spain. Made in the early nineties, you can tell, but it didn't hurt to watch. True it can't even see the good movies from where it's standing but you can glimpse a young Kate who is light years from her Underworld character.
Rating: - WOW!!
I thought that this was a very good movie. I enjoyed the ending and was quite impressed overall. Definitely a good movie for being an older movie. Props to Kate!!! ;)
Rating: - Who killed the knight?
Medieval paintings and a chess game seem like unlikely murder components, but they set off the whole plot of art puzzle/murder mystery "Uncovered." The adaptation of Arturo Perez/Reverte's novel is picturesque and has some good acting, but suffers from a total lack of suspense when it comes to whodunnit.
Art student Julia (Kate Beckinsale) is delighted when an X-ray of a old painting shows a Latin inscription: "Who killed the knight?" The trio in the painting includes a medieval duke, his young wife, and a French knight who was pretty obviously having an affair with the wife. With the help of her cheating ex-boyfriend and mysterious chess prodigy Domenec (Paudge Behan), Julia unravels the question of who killed the knight -- and why the picture was altered after it was finished.
But that isn't the end -- Julia's ex-boyfriend turns up dead in the shower, and the kindly old owner of the painting dies within days. And with each death, a corresponding ivory chess piece is left on Julia's doorstep. As brutal heirs and conniving art dealers scrabble for the painting, Julia tries to unravel who is behind the killings -- before black queen takes white queen...
"Uncovered" is more interesting as a clever art puzzle than a murder mystery, set in Barcelona's sunny colourful streets and ancient castles. It is genuinely fascinating to see the hidden meanings of the chess game and its hidden meanings, as well as the politics of Burgundy versus France. This part is intriguing, intelligent, and genuinely has an element of classical mystery.
Unfortunately, it sags when it turns into a murder mystery (with a bit of nudity thrown in), loosely tied into the medieval murder with the use of chess pieces. The murderer's identity is glaringly obvious even before he's killed anyone, and the campy, shrieky finale suffers because you already know who he is. Even the callous heirs to weren't enough to throw off the scent.
This was only Kate Beckinsale's second major role, so perhaps she can be forgiven her mediocre performance. She's middling most of the time, and occasionally lapses into hysterical crying. John Wood is a scene-stealer as the devoted gay guardian Cesar, backed by Sinéad Cusack as a catty aging party-girl and Michael Gough as an ailing aristocrat. No, I don't know by British actors are playing a slew of Spaniards, but they do a good job.
"Uncovered" is an intriguing art mystery, but it trips over itself in the second half when it becomes a mysteryless mystery. If it weren't for that, it would be simply brilliant.
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