Luther: The Fallen Sun

Movies have never quite figured out what to do with Idris Elba. Imposing, charismatic and dauntingly intelligent, Elba has so far been most memorable on television — his intense, thoughtful style feeding on the intimacy and character-building patience of episodic storytelling.

Idris Elba reprises his role as Detective Chief Inspector John Luther in the feature-length continuation of the BBC crime drama "Luther: The Fallen Sun." Though he recently ruled out playing James Bond, Elba has established an enduring hero in Luther, a renegade cop investigating London's grisliest homicides, who is larger-than-life, brilliant and troubled, rough and ready, on the edge of darkness, and willing to skirt any rule if it catches him a killer.

Elba embodies Luther's psychological torment and is the kind of screen presence who can burrow into an archetype and illuminate inner currents of passion, rage, and pain without making the obvious choice. In "The Fallen Sun," Luther is last seen cuffed by his former police superintendent, Martin Schenk (Dermot Crowley), after crossing one extralegal line too many in the show's fifth series finale. In the film's telling, Luther finds himself in prison at the start of "The Fallen Sun" due to a series of litany of rule-bending offenses that he committed while investigating the disappearance of a young janitor.

Meanwhile, Luther's latest adversary, David Robey (Andy Serkis), a teeth-gnashing ghoul of a tech billionaire, who has leaked a dossier to the media that incriminates Luther in a series of offenses, from breaking and entering to suspect intimidation, tampering with evidence, and bribery. Though stuck behind bars, Luther is still top of mind for Serkis' aforementioned ghoul, who terrorizes London through a series of elaborate killings.

Luther escapes from prison during a kerosene-soaked cellblock-riot sequence and shields himself with a flaming mattress as he brawls down a corridor of bloodthirsty inmates.

Luther hunts for clues as to Robey's next atrocity exhibition, even as he's hunted by his former colleagues on the police force, including replacement DCI Odette Raine (Cynthia Erivo) and Schenk, consulting for the department as the authority on all things Luther. The adversaries Luther faces are super-criminals, agents of terror, turning his city into a Gotham-esque urban sprawl of fear and depravity even as they justify his own vigilantism.

The film's gloomy, gothic version of London is the perfect setting for Luther, who is right at home in this city stalked by members of a rogues' gallery twisted enough to make Batman blink.

Body-mass differential aside, Luther and Robey are further hindered by a plot so dashed-off and indistinct that very little makes sense. Picking up generally where season five ended, with Luther heading to prison for his persistent vigilantism, this feature-length revival (streaming on Netflix) locks him up and gets him out with mystifying, head-spinning ease. Robey, seemingly assisted by a shadowy pod of followers, is busily hacking webcams and smart devices, recording shameful secrets and blackmailing their owners. For those who prefer to die rather than be exposed, Robey stages elaborate kill scenes, live-action tableaus that unfold with a pulpy majesty. In a movie that starts at fever pitch and rarely relents, these grisly interludes, captured by Larry Smith’s glowering camera, offer strangely haunting respites from the plot’s general chaos.

The result might be more richly cinematic, but it’s infinitely cruder, with characters so underwritten that their possible demise excites no more than a shrug. Brief sightings of the wonderful Dermot Crowley, who returns as Luther’s melancholic superintendent, have a steadying effect, as does Cynthia Erivo as Luther’s fed-up superior. But it’s Elba himself, huddled miserably inside that overcoat in a rain-soaked Piccadilly Circus, that elicits a nostalgic thrill. Call me a pushover for tormented heroes and soulful tailoring.