Gods and Generals Critic Reviews

One doesn't come away from it with any sense of what the victory cost in human terms. Read the full review

If ever there was a movie that could cause even the most restless sleeper to fall into a deep slumber, this is it. Read the full review

Maxwell has populated his film with paragons rather than people. Worse, they talk and talk and talk; this film is in danger of talking itself to death before the Union and the Confederacy are able to decimate each other. Read the full review

Gods and Generals is American history transformed into a museum movie, consistently making the flawed human characters at the heart of the Civil War into flawless figures Olympian in their statuesque remoteness.Read the full review

You don't envy the three soldiers who get shot for desertion, but you do identify with their desire to flee. Read the full review

The kind of movie beloved by people who never go to the movies, because they are primarily interested in something else--the Civil War, for example--and think historical accuracy is a virtue instead of an attribute.Read the full review

Bloodless and false.Read the full review

Playing in theaters when it belongs on television, where snacks and bathroom breaks can counteract its punishing dryness, and the option of watching something else doesn't involve driving home.Read the full review

A lumpy three-and-a-half-hour glob of Civil War history.Read the full review