The Brothers Bloom Critic Reviews

Breezily enjoyable for about 10 minutes, until you realize the entire movie is going to be pitched at the same exuberantly manic pace. It's like being trapped in an elevator with a performing poodle that doesn't know when to quit.Read the full review

This movie is lively at times, it's lovely to look at, and the actors are persuasive in very difficult material. But around and around it goes, and where it stops, nobody by that point much cares.Read the full review

This time we expect to be played, but the twist is that we're also touched -- which, the film implies, is the cinema's own form of deception.Read the full review

The leads aren't only miscast -- Brody over-mopes and the usually wonderful Ruffalo seems out of sorts as a rascally schemer -- but interest in the con plot fades as the director's bag of tricks empties further.Read the full review

The Brothers Bloom with satisfy those with a yearning for lighthearted heist tales, comedies, and offbeat romances.Read the full review

Emotionally, The Brothers Bloom hasn't a trace of detachment or cynicism. Even if you don't quite comprehend the ending (there seem to be 12 of them), you'll still feel the wallop of its consequences.Read the full review

Like Anderson, Johnson has a fine eye for color, great taste in music, and a knack for painterly compositions, but the world he creates is airless and ultimately empty.Read the full review

A couple of rather Dickensian supporting roles by Robbie Coltrane and Maximilian Schell fall embarrassingly flat as they are more creations of costumes and makeup than actual flesh-and-blood. But then the same can be said for the entire movie.Read the full review

As much as you admire the stagecraft and the technical skills on display, when all is said and done, that's all it is: a fancy, not-quite-two-hour stunt.Read the full review