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While it's possible to view this movie like a short-story collection, putting check marks beside the selections one likes best, to do so would deny the pleasure of experiencing this beautifully crafted, intricately designed story the way it was intended, as an organic whole. [11 June 1999, Calendar, p.F-8]
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88There really is a little something here for everyone: music and culture, politics and passion, crime and intrigue, history and even the backstage intrigue of the auction business.
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75Although not all of the movements are fleshed out to their full potential, The Red Violin still attains a certain symphonic grandeur that -- at a time when so many filmmakers are churning out cinematic ditties -- deserves to be applauded. [18 June 1999, Friday, p.A]
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75Girard invests each episode of this production with dramatic credibility and emotional strength.
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75Some will say this film is overly ambitious, but what the hell. The man put five years of his life into making this epic mystery. We can surely give it two hours of ours.
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Beautiful. Simply, beautiful.
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75The ensemble cast is diverse and accomplished, but, because of the time constraints, no one has enough time to register much of a positive or negative impression.
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Carefully crafted, lushly romantic.
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70As pleasant stimulation for the eye and ear, it's two hours of sumptuousness, but anyone looking for more won't find it here.
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70It's unlikely that anyone will be bored. But it's just as unlikely that anyone will be swept off his feet either.
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63The plot's larcenous resolution is something of a cheat, tying things up dramatically if unethically.
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60Audaciously conceived, yet at times curiously flat, at others incongruously prosaic in its emotional tone.
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60Wants to make a grand statement about the mystical power (both celestial and demonic) of great music. But give or take some scattered musical moments, the frame in which that message is couched is too kitschy to let that vision catch fire.
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60These stories, alas, are utterly predictable. Still, Samuel L. Jackson breaks through the crust of cliches as an expert called in to verify the instrument's provenance, and violinist Joshua Bell plays and Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts John Corigliano's score ravishingly.
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50Almost by himself, Jackson transforms the film's final chapter into a serviceable view -- faint praise, perhaps, but a crumb to savor, given what has come before. [11 June 1999, Life, p. 6E]
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50Girard and his collaborators are so focused on the stunning tableaux that all other considerations fall by the wayside, leaving their visual achievements -- miraculous on such a small budget -- mired in the elaborate but maladroit storytelling.
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50It's almost as lame-brained as any Hollywood blockbuster, if prettier and more pretentious.
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50Fails on a number of counts, mostly because the individual stories aren't very gripping.
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50The filmmakers have created a pretentious extended "Twilight Zone" episode with obscenely high production values.
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40There's no denying the fact that Jackson is woefully miscast here, and as a result spends much of his time struggling to define his role as a “serious” collector of objets d'art in this muddled-though-gorgeous omnibus film.
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40It sustains its purplish, epic sweep by thrusting broadly etched characters into extravagantly hokey situations, and registers mainly as a flamboyant joke.
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30The style of the movie veers unsuccessfully between humorless piety and opéra-bouffe clownishness.