Babel (2006) Critic Reviews

In the year's richest, most complex and ultimately most heartbreaking film, Inarritu invites us to get past the babble of modern civilization and start listening to each other.Read the full review

The filmmakers succeed brilliantly in weaving these stories together, taking time to explore depth of character and relationships. The suspense builds throughout as everyone involved becomes lost in a place they don't understand with people they don't know if they can trust.Read the full review

Effectively building dread and emotional tension as tragic incidents triggered by human stupidity and carelessness steadily multiply, this film, like "21 Grams" in particular, employs a deterministically grim mindset in the cause of its philosophical aspirations, but is gripping nearly all the way.Read the full review

Babel may be the most ambitious movie of the year, tackling towering communication barriers, global politics and cultural divides in a structurally complex and fascinating narrative.Read the full review

Its complex (yet not mystifying) storytelling, forceful character development, and superb cinematography make this a candidate for one of 2006's best offerings.Read the full review

In the end Babel, like that tower in the book of Genesis, is a grand wreck, an incomplete monument to its own limitless ambition. But it is there, on the landscape, a startling and imposing reality. It's a folly, and also, perversely, a wonder.Read the full review

Babel has great expectations for itself: It wants to be a movie about big ideas and big emotions at the same time. Aided by gorgeous locations and classy trappings (cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto, theme music by Gustavo Santaolalla), it succeeds for the most part.Read the full review

The beauty of this film is in its lapidary details, which sparkle with feeling and surprise.Read the full review

When the best part of the movie is when no one's talking and the anguish relents, it says something. It says that Iñárritu is a great director in need of a screenwriter who has more than one card to play.Read the full review