Goya's Ghosts 2006

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Ultimately Goya's Ghosts left me wanting to watch Amadeus again, for the pleasure of a story well told. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Misery, misery, misery. Read more

Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Times: Goya's Ghosts, the new feature from the director Milos Forman, is an unwieldy mix of political satire and lavish period soap opera. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: One of [Forman's] more fanciful [biopics], spinning a historical melodrama around the great Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: If Forman is trying to communicate that art isn't an effective way to change American society, he's proved his point neatly with this muddled, wandering dud. Read more

Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic: It's a richly seen and felt movie, but not one with a feel-good message. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: An overstuffed turkey that's entertaining for all the wrong reasons. It may in fact be the comedy of the summer, a melodramatic folly whose ambitions consistently curdle into camp. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Goya's Ghosts is Milos Forman's first film since 1999, but you sincerely wish it wasn't. A logy, rambling period piece, it feels about as far away from the spirit of Amadeus as it's possible to get with wigs and britches. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: A punishing misfire. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Portman is saddled with the worst role. Ines spends much of her screen time acting blighted and deranged, a condition not improved by Portman's penchant for stage theatrics. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Goya's Ghosts is such a botch, it left me yearning for a little digital bombast. Read more

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: While there are probably computer-generated backgrounds and armies on screen, the movie still has the feel of an old-fashioned epic. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: Given the bad buzz that has attended this latest collaboration between director Milos Forman and producer Saul Zaentz -- it's a pleasant surprise to find that Goya's Ghosts is both far from an embarrassment and a generally fine piece of work. Read more

Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News: There's an unfortunate tendency in this movie for the forces of history to overtake scenes. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: The problem with Goya's Ghosts lies in its conception of Goya himself, who is depicted as being both a blithe suck-up and embittered moralist. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Fascinating ideas do hover, like mournful specters, around the edges of this meticulously detailed movie. But then they disappear, leaving us vaguely sad and unsettled, with nothing solid to grasp. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: An across-the-board disaster from one of my favorite directors, Milos Forman. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Think of it as an Amadeus that doesn't work. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Not a perfect film, but its implications have profound resonance. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The movie is uneven in the extreme, to the extent that it feels like two imperfectly wed pictures. The first, while not extraordinary, at least contains some interesting ideas. The second borders on embarrassing. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: An extraordinarily beautiful film that plays almost like an excuse to generate its images. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Goya's Ghosts...has no clear purpose, no clear message and no clear central character. Like most costume dramas these days, it dwells on the gore, filth and violence of the past -- but toward what end is never apparent. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Rich in color and period detail, the film attempts an epic sprawl it never quite achieves, but the movie is always enjoyable and interesting. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: It has grand scale and grand ambitions, and in the midst of our annual silly season at the movies I would like to suggest that, flawed as it is, the film does reward our serious attention. Read more

Cliff Doerksen, Time Out: Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Read more

Nick Funnell, Time Out: With its riffs on art, its split-in-half story and Goya-esque production design, you can see it reaching for grand ideas about actions and their reverberations, but it merely rumbles on, illuminating neither the artist nor his tumultuous times. Read more

Jonathan Holland, Variety: Ambitious script is stranded between entertainment and intellectualism, leaving us with a magnificent folly, thoroughly watchable for its visuals but ultimately hollow. Read more

Charles Petersen, Village Voice: Distinctly Goya in its emphasis on the grotesque, it shows none of the Spaniard's artistic economy. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Handsome but stilted. Read more