Titus

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A film of audacity and total gut-level appeal.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Gorgeous in its gore and, for all its destruction, despair and death, concludes on an optimistic and vibrantly alive note.

Austin Chronicle Robert Faires

A spectacularly imaginative piece of Shakespearean cinema.

Chicago Tribune John Petrakis

Once you get used to the broad gestures, visual stylings and reach-for-the-sky emotions, you may find yourself luxuriating in this movie's undeniable grandeur.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

Taymor conjures images that are as indelible as they are wordlessly articulate.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A brilliant and absurd film of "Titus Andronicus" that goes over the top, doubles back and goes over the top again.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

Visually brilliant and thought-provoking.

TNT RoughCut Don Kaye

A surreal and visually dazzling smorgasbord of pageantry, high camp, tragedy, spectacle, and gore.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Taymor's visual and visceral flair makes Titus a grabber.

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

Taymor moves Titus completely out of time and into all time.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

One of Hollywood's bloodiest and goofiest adaptations.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Rescues a rarely performed tragedy and makes a brilliant case that it is the Shakespeare play for our time.

Time Richard Corliss

Vivid, relevant and of elevating scariness.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

The director bludgeons us dumb with her genius.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Julie Taymor's beautifully stylized but nauseatingly violent adaptation of Shakespeare's first play.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

A brilliant production of a mediocre play.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Much of it is inspired, some of it is downright awful, but it does entertain, even as it threatens to drown its generally fine cast in a flood of blood and sundry body parts.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Taymor has done an inspired job of resurrecting one of Shakespeare's unruliest works, just in time for the new century.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Remains a sampling of stagy scenes barreling to a gruesome climax, parts greater than the sum of the whole.

USA Today Staff [Not Credited]

There's a lot to talk about but so much outrageousness that the end effect is wearying and not a little absurd.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Taymor makes the action clear and easy to follow with her bold physicalization of the story and forceful direction of an astutely chosen cast.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Makes the best possible argument for a cautionary drama that contemplates the absolute worst in us.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A nonstop carnival of murder, rape, and mutilation .

Film.com Ernest Hardy

An often gorgeous, dizzying assault of ideas and visual flourishes...it's just not very good.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

More travesty than tragedy.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

There's something hideously pretentious about the whole thing.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Even the most shocking elements of the story are made bland by childish overkill.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Like so many self-conscious directors, Julie Taymor wrecks Shakespeare's already disastrous play with her own horrific vision.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

Invoking unpleasant memories of "Caligula" (only without the sex), Titus does no justice to Shakespeare.