Evita Critic Reviews

But Parker's visuals enliven the music, and Madonna and Banderas bring it passion. By the end of the film we feel like we've had our money's worth, and we're sure Evita has.Read the full review

Alan Parker's picture is epic, lavish and fascinating. It is not a perfect screen musical, but it is spectacular and it works.Read the full review

This brash, glitzy, energetic entertainment has the power to hold an audience enraptured, but, at the same time, there's a sense that what we're experiencing is just candy for the eyes and ears.Read the full review

Director Alan Parker has done a dazzling job creating screen images to accompany the wall-to-wall music, resulting in a musical fresco that is much closer to a sophisticated filmed opera than to any conventional tuner.Read the full review

Evita is a busy movie with an often noisy soundtrack that can get tedious and monotonous (particularly in the second half), but it's just as likely to sweep one away with its musical, emotional and historical momentum.Read the full review

So fluidly visual that only a deathbed finale can flag its pace, it's the first Panavision music video to run 21/4 hours, the monotony finally sapping its staying power. [23 Dec 1996 Pg.01.D]Read the full review

The movie is such a chore because watching actors strain to wrap their mouths around prerecorded songs for 134 minutes is irritating and, worse, alienating.Read the full review

But the film is still breathless and shrill, since Alan Parker's direction shows no signs of a moral or political compass and remains in exhausting overdrive all the time.Read the full review

Technically, Madonna's singing is beautiful -- elegant, silky, refined. Yet there's no fire, no twinkle of ambitious joy, to her performance. Her face is fixed, almost tranquilized -- a porcelain mask.Read the full review