Perhaps it'll come as no surprise that this murder mystery set in the university world of Oxford is far too clever for its own good. John Hurt is the class act here but sadly he phones in his performance as the world-weary maths professor who uses advanced number theories to crack the symbols left by a serial killer. His endless brainstorming sessions with an adoring grad student (a typically wide-eyed Elijah Wood) are about as thrilling to watch as chalk dust being gradually eroded by the rapid expulsion of so much hot air. Also, Spanish writer/director Alex de la Iglesia (who co-adapted the novel by Guillermo Martínez) fails to inject any sense of urgency in the lead-up to the murders, and the finale is especially tedious. Such an unremarkable outcome is inevitable given the two-dimensional nature of the characters. In other words, this purely intellectual exercise is a neat formula for a crime story, but in the end it adds up to nothing.

At Oxford University, a professor and a grad student work together to try and stop a potential series of murders seemingly linked by mathematical symbols.