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100So moving, so memorable, so magically produced, it's going to delight millions of movie fans and sweep the Oscars.
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90Above all a cracking good yarn that earns its laughter, its wonder and its tears.
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88As Darabont directs it, it tells a story with beginning, middle, end, vivid characters, humor, outrage and emotional release. Dickensian.
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88A reminder of just how good Hollywood storytelling can be.
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80Darabont follows King's book fairly closely, allowing the audience to steep itself in the setting and characters slowly, like reading a good novel.
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78A touching (and at times horrific) -- albeit overlong -- Christ allegory, that scores not so much on the strength of its convictions as it does on the truly remarkable performances it elicits from the cast.
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75On many levels, it hits its marks -- but it still misses the impact of some shorter, less-ambitious movies that play with our emotions more deftly or deeply, walk their miles, deadly or not, with a lighter, faster, more confident tread.
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75A very engrossing movie, the kind that gives shameless manipulation a good name.
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75Has a simple but exceptionally powerful and uplifting emotional lure.
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75Well acted by an ensemble that leans toward equality for all, Mile carries its long running time extremely well.
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75There's almost too much there, but the three-hour-plus film permits the kind of detailing that not only brings the storytelling to life, but sometimes persuades us we're breathing to its rhythms.
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75Excessive, but I, like Mr. Jingles, can't resist the Christmas-season cheese.
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75An often pedestrian film, one that never inflates to the epic grandeur to which it aspires or transfers its own emotional trajectory off the screen and into the viewer.
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75A richly textured thriller.
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70A film with a counterproductive tendency to take its time...but unassumingly strong, moving performances and Darabont's durable storytelling make it a trip worth taking just the same.
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70An intermittently powerful and meticulously crafted drama that falls short of its full potential due to considerable over-length and some shopworn, simplistic notions at its center.
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70From its deceptively easygoing beginning to the heart-wrenching finale, The Green Mile keeps you wonderfully high above the cynical ground.
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65This jailhouse jam is quite a haul.
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63Surely a life sentence goes by quicker.
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60Modest, on-the-money performances, which look effortless because they're so meticulously thought out, make the hours fly by.
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60A fascinating tragedy, easy to underrate.
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60But just watch Hanks, with the effortless grace of a Jimmy Stewart, turn the loony into something sweetly logical. Now that is magic.
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60A loud and ghastly movie to sit through and not short on gratuitous hideousness, but Darabont has also done his best to baste it with humanity and sweetness.
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60I still feel pushed around by Darabont's mysticism, and his overbearing sense of grandness; a little bit of the Mile goes a long way.
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60Much of the three-hour movie takes place in the prison, but the resonant characterization, expansive plotting, and judicious use of exterior locations and flashbacks remove any sense of claustrophobia or sluggishness.
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50Its view of spiritual healing is closer to Spielberg fantasy than religious insight. Still, its good acting and good intentions will be enough to please many viewers.
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50Three hours of overstatement and schmaltz.
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50A shameless "Shawshank" redux.
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50Simply a case of severe overreaching and the illusion that an overstuffed movie is an epic movie.
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50While writer-director Frank Darabont often fails to make King's story plausible, that's no fault of the actors. The performances are the movie's strong suit.
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50Superficially respectful but ultimately cruel.
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50At the core, though, one finds a slacky, sappy film. The human mystery that breathed so easily in "Shawshank" is often forced here.
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40Irritatingly repetitious and piled high with long-foreseen conclusions.
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40Moves with the suffocating deliberateness of a river of molasses.
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38With a grating combination of naivete and arrogance, The Green Mile consistently overplays its melodramatic material, including a portrait of a black man that is as breathtakingly offensive as it is earnest.
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30A lumbering, self-important three-hour melodrama that defies credibility at every turn.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 41 out of 43
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Mixed: 1 out of 43
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Negative: 1 out of 43
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10It makes me angry to see many low scores from critics, this is probably one of the best and most emotional movies I have ever watched.
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10
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theresam10Thought-provoking and emotional dynamite!