Princess and the Warrior, The

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A heady yet disciplined work, a dazzling fable of love, destiny and redemption.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What's special about the film is at a deeper level, down where (Tykwer) engages with the souls of his characters.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Every once in a while a picture comes along that captures not just love, but romance in all its fear, yearning, fantasy, eroticism and unexpected epiphanies. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer's The Princess and the Warrior is one such film.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Deeply whimsical beneath its poker face, The Princess and the Warrior has the structure of an elaborate mind-teasing puzzle.

New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo

The cornerstone of this fascinating film is a peculiar but absolutely solid love story. In terms of intellectual and emotional stimulation, who could ask for more?

Washington Post Desson Thomson

You don't have any idea what's going to happen next. You're not caught in a movie, so much as a narrative stratagem.

Variety David Rooney

Eminently stylish, visually striking romantic thriller.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Spellbinding on its own terms, a modernist fable with a madly romantic soul.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Offers much food for thought.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

When (Tykwer) connects it's exhilarating and gorgeous, a sight to behold.

Chicago Tribune Loren King

An unpredictable, mythic tale about haunted outcasts that is both dazzling and disquieting.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Vastly more explicit (be warned) and intelligent (than "Angel Eyes"). It also leads to much darker - and more interesting - places.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Lacks the gimmicky hook that made "Run Lola Run" an arthouse hit, but it doesn't lack for ideas, nor for images that will sweep you up in their boldness and have the resonance of dreams.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's dreary and self-indulgent but has its crystalline moments.

Newsweek David Ansen

Goes on too long, and much of it is hooey, but it’s hard not to have a good time.

USA Today Mike Clark

The film has its moments as a mood piece.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Princess is far more contemplative than "Run Lola Run," far less energized, and the little tricks of fate that made his last film so unique seem like sophomoric affectations here.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Tykwer made Potente a star in Run Lola Run, and here she repays him 10 times over. Without her force of gravity, this film would waft into the ether.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Nowhere near as dynamic as the title implies. It's hard not to think of it as ''Sleepwalk Lola Sleepwalk.''

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Promising in its first third, only to end up shambling too aimlessly in the last. But as flawed as this picture is, there's one sequence in it that has already burrowed deep in my memory, and of everything in the movie, it's the one element that convinces me that Tykwer has it in him to one day make a truly great picture.

TV Guide Ken Fox

(Tykwer's) unpredictability has become predictable, and the only thing genuinely uncanny here is the unsettling — and unintentional — sense of déjà vu.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Tykwer may want meaning to go with his special effects, but the problem with his filmmaking, both here and earlier, is that he's more interested in his own bag of tricks than in actually saying something.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Tykwer ends the film on a bizarre note that caught me off guard, a too-literal bit of salvation that is more bothersome than revelatory.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

An absurdist semi-romance between two traumatized somnambulists.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Throughout, Tykwer reaches for mysteries he has no idea how to evoke, relying instead on his actors' empty stares.