It's a crime what happened to the wonderful African wilderness movie Duma in 2005. Beautifully directed by veteran Carroll Ballard, Duma fell flat in the United States because of bad timing and abysmal marketing.

| Feb 8, 2008

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 1, 2006

For those wishing they still made films like The Black Stallion, today is your lucky day.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 31, 2006

Visually panoramic, a film that revels in making the expanse of a beautiful place palpable.

| Mar 30, 2006

Too suspenseful for the youngest children, but for anyone older than 8 or 9, it evokes nothing less than awe at the harsh beauty of the natural world.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 18, 2006

With ravenous alligators and lions on the prowl, Duma delivers familiar adventure, but Ballard refuses to cater to cuteness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 3, 2006

Like its title character, Duma has been left to fend for itself by Warner Bros., which is barely releasing it. A successful showing this weekend will prove that there really is an audience for this brand of thoughtful, literate family film.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 3, 2006

Family films can be simplistic or condescending, but the joy of Carroll Ballard's work is that it's neither.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 6, 2006

[Director] Ballard's dime-store philosophizing gets schmaltzy, but the emotions seem heartfelt. And as he has done in earlier movies, he incorporates some spectacular backdrops.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 5, 2006

Unlike many lesser movies aimed at families, this has heart, humor, thrilling adventure and stunning visuals.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 5, 2005

I can't say enough about that magisterial cheetah.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 1, 2005

A pleasing fable reminiscent of G-rated nature movies of the '60s and '70s, before kiddie cinema required CGI or hip cultural references.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 30, 2005

This soulful, piercingly beautiful story about a boy and his cheetah marks the welcome return to the screen of the director Carroll Ballard.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 30, 2005

Carroll Ballard still works in his ravishing, nearly pointillistic style of organic visual splendor.

| Original Score: B | Sep 30, 2005

Simultaneously innocent and sophisticated, this honestly emotional fable shows why every Ballard film -- and his last was released almost a decade ago -- is a special event.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 29, 2005

Ostensibly a children's movie, but adults will want to see it, too.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 29, 2005

Ballard treats the quandary faced by Xan and Duma with a sure hand.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 29, 2005

A drama of uncommon beauty and emotional resonance about a boy's journey to return his pet cheetah to its natural habitat.

Full Review | Sep 29, 2005

I like it. Maybe not as much as those other pictures, but enough to bemoan a system in which family films have been so geared to kids (and their parents) with a kind of attention deficit disorder that it's inhospitable to a measured piece of storytelling.

Full Review | Sep 29, 2005

Surprisingly flat.

Full Review | Sep 27, 2005