The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys Critic Reviews

Essentially a coming-of-age story set in working-class North Carolina in the 1970s. But it's so startlingly original that it transcends the genre. This is a wonderful film, from puckish start to momentous finish.Read the full review

The look and feel of the film is entirely beguiling. It is deliberately not a period piece, heavy with dated styles and fads, but instead evokes a sense of timelessness.Read the full review

Steers refreshingly clear of the usual cliches. Character takes the wheel and dictates the action, not the other way around.Read the full review

The masterstroke of this small, heartfelt directorial debut (by Peter Care, from a screenplay by Jeff Stockwell) is its integration of animated sequences (by Todd McFarlane) in which action-adventure caricatures of the comic book characters parallel or comment on events in the boys' lives.Read the full review

Sharp, lively, funny and ultimately sobering film.Read the full review

First-time director Peter Care crafts something darkly funny and touching from a coming-of-age fable that might have drifted into formula without deeply felt performances from Culkin and Hirsch and dazzling animation from Todd McFarlane (Spawn) that brings the boys' comic fantasies to jolting life.Read the full review

Isn't the best coming-of-age story to hit the big screen, but it skirts new territory, and does so with a flare that earns it a recommendation.Read the full review

The film's chief shortcoming is perhaps its failure to convey a stronger, more atmospheric sense of the repressive 1970s Catholic school environment that breeds the titular boys' rebellion and wild flights of fancy.Read the full review

If the film had been less extreme in the adventures of its heroes, more willing to settle for plausible forms of rebellion, that might have worked. It tries too hard, and overreaches the logic of its own world.Read the full review