• First third of the film: annoying as fuck. Mandela is a player, likes to like the ladies; is filled with an annoying-as-fuck-Hollywood schmoozy soundtrack absolute bollocks which almost made me stop watching; not to mention clichéd as fuck ‘African boy runs through African wildnerness’ type scenes included within this vomit-worthy soundtrack. It almost feels as though the story was written around the soundtrack.

However, it significantly improves:

• Much political activity after his imprisonment; Mandela made choices and in those choices he chose to marry Winnie; enough time is dedicated to her to enable the viewer to comprehend how important she is within the whole political spectrum; the lady was no wallflower, she may have turned out to be a political bull in a china shop, but regardless of whether or not you believe her actions were correct or not, I think they are worth seeing and they really complete the story.

• The viewer sees many actual news TV flashbacks, some of which are truly horrendous and some quite joyous. That said, we’ve probably all seen far worse since Mandela’s time. Hopefully there’s nothing here that’ll keep your kids awake all night, I didn’t’ see anything quite that graphic, iirc. Oh, apart from people holding their dead kids.

I was expecting to be blown away with Idris Elba’s acting after reading rave reviews, but unfortunately, due to the Hollywooded-to-the-eyeballs bollocks in the first third, I was just moderately impressed. I don’t blame him, I blame the script. I very much liked his performance as an older Mandela. I do like Idris a lot, which I hope shows that I’m not biased about this story: given a shit script, what's a fella to do? However, he made good in the last two thirds.

Despite my above critique, I would still I strongly recommend. The first third, as I mentioned, feels like Hollywood bullshit and is like watching The Titanic, but if you can make yourself persevere, the film really pays off, and even for a cold hard bitch like me, brings a few teary (political) moments to the eye.

8.75/10, would definitely watch again.*

*switch off immediately after the ending scene, there's an awful U2 song which nobody should be subjected to.