Vicky Cristina Barcelona Critic Reviews

As exhilarating, captivating and enjoyable as a summer romance in an exotic city.Read the full review

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is beautiful because Allen is now decidedly in control of this phase of his career, which blends the sharpness of his older dramas with a newly acquired expatriate hipness.Read the full review

An atypical Allen film. Some of his usual themes are present - in particular, his neuroses about sex and love - but this movie does not bear enough Allen hallmarks to single it out as his work.Read the full review

The narration, aided by a terrific score, does streamline the storytelling, and adds to it a faintly sardonic top note.Read the full review

Bardem's performance is so good it tends to mask how lacking much of what surrounds it is.Read the full review

The two most hilarious characters, played by Spain's two most famous actors, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, are nothing if not cliches about tempestuous Latin lovers. But, boy, does Allen have fun with those cliches.Read the full review

Although Vicky Cristina trips along winningly, carried by the beauty of its locations and stars -- and all the gauzy romanticism those enchanted places and people imply -- it reverberates with implacable melancholy, a sense of loss.Read the full review

The film's freedom and control, its inspiration and focus, announce it as the work of a confident and mature artist.Read the full review

The writing is zippy, the story spins like a top, and Bardem turns out to be the wittiest of leading men.Read the full review