A week is a long time in cinema. Last Friday saw Branagh being all but written off thanks to the ludicrous Sleuth. This week, he's hitting the high notes.
Comment
11/30/07
The Magic Flute (2006)
69 %
Reviews Counted: 16 Fresh: 11 Rotten:5 Average Rating: 5.6/10
Rated: PG
Theatrical Release: 30-11-2007
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Reviews
1 - 18 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
His flamboyant rendering of the Mozart opera isn't as smug and stagey as Sleuth, but it is insufferable – and 40 minutes longer.
11/30/07
Set on the battlefields of the Great War – very high-concept – it will drive many Mozart traditionalists to distraction.
11/30/07
Set on the battlefields of the Great War – very high-concept – it will drive many Mozart traditionalists to distraction.
11/30/07
With James Conlon conducting, this Flute is perfectly in tune - so it's a shame Branagh keeps dropping it in the mud.
11/30/07
Top Critic
A genial and good-natured production with much spectacle and entertainment to offer, and, like all of Branagh's classical revivals on celluloid, it manages to be high-minded and yet accessible.
11/30/07
Top Critic
Despite the talent involved – Branagh is joined by Stephen Fry, who has written a new libretto – and the ambitious staging, this flute blows all right, but it’s short on the magic.
11/30/07
Top Critic
Flashes of inspiration but not enough, one suspects, to cause a stampeding horde of cinemagoers to beat down the doors of the Royal Opera House.
11/30/07
Top Critic
It's an impressive undertaking by Branagh but a rather pointless one.
11/29/07
A huge budget allows for spectacular CGI sequences and Branagh concocts some startlingly inspired ways to accompany Mozart's music in visuals.
11/29/07
Top Critic
Branagh’s imagery is imaginative and the music lifts you. A neat trick.
11/29/07
Apart from a fascination with the hate-spitting mouth and throat of Lyubov Petrova’s vocally pyrotechnic Queen of the Night, the visual gimmicks are individually tolerable. But they don’t add up to anything particular.
11/29/07
Top Critic
Although Branagh has done a good job of toning down the opera’s more ridiculous elements, what remains will test even the most willing opera virgin.
11/28/07
Top Critic
Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute comes on strong %u2013 maybe too strong...
01/08/08
Opera buffs shouldn't throw away their DVDs of Ingmar Bergman's 1975 TV movie.
09/23/06
Top Critic
Even though there were moments in The Magic Flute when I wondered if Branagh hadn't truly gone off his rocker, I found its audacity exhilarating.
09/20/06
Miles away from the cute theatrical film adaptation of Ingmar Bergman, though bigger in this case is not necessarily better.
09/08/06
1 - 18 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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