W. Critic Reviews

Why this movie -- a rushed, wildly uneven, tonally jumbled caricature -- and why now?Read the full review

The performances are good (some scarily realistic), and the movie is enjoyable to watch. But as a probing analysis of the 43rd president, it falls short.Read the full review

Like Tina Fey's Sarah Palin, Stone's George Bush gets his best lines straight from the source.Read the full review

Superficial, uninformative, and inert, this two hour snoozefest isn't even inflammatory enough to stoke a righteous anti-Bush brushfire. W. does for recent history what Oliver Stone's epic "Alexander" did for ancient times.Read the full review

In spite of Josh Brolin's heroic efforts, W. is a skin-deep biopic that revels in its antic shallowness.Read the full review

W. is not a dispassionate biography; it is an interpretation of personality intersecting with history, and as a piece of drama it is persuasive and perfectly creditable.Read the full review

It's a gutsy movie but not necessarily a good one. Its greatest strength is that it wants to talk about what's on our minds right now and not wait for historians.Read the full review

The intrepid one is the outstanding Josh Brolin, who does such a phenomenal job in the title role that he carries every scene he's in to a place of subtlety and integrity far beyond what Stone needs to make his attention-grabbing noise.Read the full review

The pleasure of Mr. Stone's work has never been located in restraint but in excess, a commitment to extremes that can drown out the world or, as in this film, give it newly vivid, hilarious and horrible form.Read the full review