Vicky Cristina Barcelona

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The film's freedom and control, its inspiration and focus, announce it as the work of a confident and mature artist.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

It's a summery idyll: his most entertaining picture since "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994) or maybe "Sweet and Lowdown" (1999).

Village Voice Scott Foundas

Allen has crafted a wry and thoughtful film about the peculiar stirrings of the heart that is certainly his most accomplished piece of work since 2005's "Match Point" and arguably his funniest in the eight years since "Small Time Crooks."

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Smoking, shouting, practically shooting off sparks, Cruz spreads a wildfire sexuality across Allen's sunny tableau of Catalan country picnics and scenic Barcelona ramblings.

USA Today Claudia Puig

As exhilarating, captivating and enjoyable as a summer romance in an exotic city.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

After years of diminishing returns, Woody Allen spectacularly returns to form with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, his funniest movie in years and arguably his sexiest.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Through it all, Vicky Cristina Barcelona remains unaccountably romantic, a confirmation that love, elusive and painful as it can be, is still worth pursuing.

The New Yorker David Denby

Allen can be literal-minded about his thematic polarities, but, in this movie, he has put actors with first-class temperament on the screen, and his writing is both crisp and ambivalent: he works everything out with a stringent thoroughness that still allows room for surprise.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Offers potent romantic fantasy elements for men and women and a cast that should produce the best commercial returns for a Woody Allen film since "Match Point."

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Ought to have been an eye-roller. What a surprise that it's so seductive. The Woodman lives!

Washington Post Dan Zak

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is beautiful because Allen is now decidedly in control of this phase of his career, which blends the sharpness of his older dramas with a newly acquired expatriate hipness.

Empire Ian Freer

Within Allen’s recent output, Vicky Cristina is the highlight. See it for beautiful locales, an ambivalent look at human relationships and a clutch of great performances, especially from Cruz.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The two most hilarious characters, played by Spain's two most famous actors, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, are nothing if not cliches about tempestuous Latin lovers. But, boy, does Allen have fun with those cliches.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Cruz, who has never been able to fully show what she's capable of as an actress in an English-language film, takes to the role of the dark-haired hellcat with a sexy, bewitching fury.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

With all this going for it, Vicky Cristina Barcelona should be better than it is. But there's something intriguing going on here. It's a movie about the sacrifices that people make to be happy.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie goes down very easily.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The actors are attractive, the city is magnificent, the love scenes don't get all sweaty, and everybody finishes the summer a little wiser and with a lifetime of memories. What more could you ask?

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Gotham gives way to Gaudi and the Met to Miro, but the sensibility is the same, the city as a precious treasure, and so is the message: Life may be hard and short, love may be flawed or doomed, but, my, aren't we blessed with lovely distractions.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Sincere, delicately funny, a little staid, a little precious, and more interested in the ebb and flow of the heart than in the dubious rewards of sensational narrative twists.

Premiere Eric Kohn

Allen does craft a fairly observant account of human behavior, so that the solemn aspects don't put a damper on the humor, or vice versa.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Woody Allen's sexiest movie ever.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

I enjoyed it as much as any Allen film of the last 20 years.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Although Vicky Cristina trips along winningly, carried by the beauty of its locations and stars -- and all the gauzy romanticism those enchanted places and people imply -- it reverberates with implacable melancholy, a sense of loss.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

The narration, aided by a terrific score, does streamline the storytelling, and adds to it a faintly sardonic top note.

Time Richard Corliss

It's just fine. Not great; just fine.

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

Let's not kid ourselves: There's something about Javi.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The writing is zippy, the story spins like a top, and Bardem turns out to be the wittiest of leading men.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Fitfully good.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

There's a terrific movie buried in Woody Allen's tale of two American girls broadening their horizons in Barcelona, and every once in a while tantalizing glimpses penetrate the twee narration and mannered performances.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

An atypical Allen film. Some of his usual themes are present - in particular, his neuroses about sex and love - but this movie does not bear enough Allen hallmarks to single it out as his work.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Bardem's performance is so good it tends to mask how lacking much of what surrounds it is.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It's literally difficult to believe that the person who made this picturesque, clueless, oddly misanthropic picture also made "Annie Hall" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors."

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

There are two stormy performances from Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz that elevate Allen's melancholy thoughts on love and relationships.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Something is terribly amiss when the American actors sound like English is their second language.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Allen's laziness is startling, even in so mechanical a filmmaker. He uses a monotonous narrator to tell us what the characters think and do, though he then shows them performing the actions that have just been described.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Watching Allen fart out a story when he has no characters is always painful, as people are defined through clumsy expository dialogue and ranked according to their cultural accomplishments. But the script here is lazy even by his standards.