The idea and presence of Goya himself is somehow off-centre and off-balance throughout this directionless movie.
Comment
05/04/07
Goya's Ghosts (2007)
29
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:83
Fresh:24
Rotten:59
Average Rating:4.8/10
Consensus: Ornate costumes and a talented cast can't make up for Ghosts' glacial pace and confused plot.
Theatrical Release:04-05-2007
Synopsis: From two-time Academy Award® winning director Milos Forman and three-time Academy Award® winning producer Saul Zaentz, GOYA'S GHOSTS is a sweeping historical epic, told through the eyes of... [More]
Starring: Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgaard, Randy Quaid
Director: Milos Forman
Reviews for Goya's Ghosts
Top CriticDespite noteworthy attention to period detail in production and costume design, these are not enough to carry the film's confused plot.
05/04/07
Top CriticThe cast is rather too eclectic for its own good. These are superior actors, but thrown together like this they all stick out like sore thumbs.
05/03/07
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.
05/03/07
Top CriticIt’s never entirely clear who or what the film is about.
05/04/07
Top CriticThe whole thing creaks along like an anaemic snail.
05/04/07
This is a set of footnotes rather than a fully achieved film — but it’s so packed with tidbits of interest it can’t fail to be intermittently diverting.
05/04/07
Top CriticIt’s as dull as the proverbial ditchwater.
05/04/07
Impressively made, watchable costume drama with strong performances from its three leads, despite the unusual casting.
05/04/07
Classy cinematography and powerful performances by all.
05/04/07
Sumptuously filmed, but so lacking in a central narrative focal point that for all its pretences, Goya's Ghosts succeeds in saying nothing at all.
05/04/07
Top CriticClose to a disaster.
05/04/07
Top CriticAny film that sets its vision of Spain in the era of Inquisition and Napoleon against Goya's needs to have something pretty special to offer; this one doesn't.
05/04/07
Top CriticGoya's Ghosts has ambitious goals that it never fully attains. It proves intermittently fascinating but ultimately disappointing.
08/11/07
[Forman] merely gives it a high polish, with lots of beautiful costumes, makeup and set designs, hoping that the Academy will remember him once more.
07/20/07
Captures the essence of the period -- an intriguing, backward era in Spain -- but without the emotional impact that such a film requires.
08/24/07
Goya's Ghosts uses the lives of artists and historical figures to show us the best and the worst of our human impulses.
08/10/07
Reminds us of the wisdom behind the title of Goya's most famous etching: 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.'
08/24/07
A disjointed oddity.
08/23/07
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.
07/17/07
Latest News for Goya's Ghosts
June 29, 2007:
The ultimate accidental insight provided by the film is that history may be recorded by the victors, but it is far less amenable to being smoothly scripted or orchestrated, either by foreign empires or filmmakers. 
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June 04, 2007:
Trailer & Poster review
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March 31, 2007:
european-films.net's preview & trailer
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March 23, 2007:
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