Jordan’s attention to detail and his ability to paint enemies and friends in differing, complex shades, exemplifies why his work as a director was frequently and criminally underrated.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 26, 2022

Leaders who help bring about huge change are often gifted with a charisma that will spur a nation into action. Liam Neeson, as Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, has just that.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 8, 2021

The script and Neeson's passionate performance demonstrate a case where the good intention of heroes seeking freedom gets thwarted by political maneuverings.

| Aug 11, 2021

Michael Collins really is Irish history told on a bold, sweeping, comprehensible scale; in a sense, it's almost Irish history Hollywoodised.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 1, 2019

Clearly, this is a subject Jordan cares about passionately, but he hasn't found a form to make us share his passion. Unless you come to Michael Collins with strong feelings about its hero, it's unlikely you will be deeply engaged.

| Feb 26, 2018

[Neeson] is superb as the principled, steely yet romantic action hero of Neil Jordan's film, which has been re-released for the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1916.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 3, 2016

Bad history perhaps, but Neeson's performance borders on the brilliant.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 28, 2010

While the film is unflinching in its depiction of the brutality of both the English and the Irish, Jordan pointedly dissociates his hero from any actual ugliness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 28, 2010

There are pain and honor in [Neeson's] performance, and they constantly rise up to redeem a film that is less probing, less thoughtful than its director's claims and aspirations for it.

| Mar 28, 2010

Intelligent, enormously accomplished and seriously problematic, Neil Jordan's ambitious account of the activities of arguably the central figure in Ireland's painful, bloody fight for independence from the British Empire has a great deal to offer...

Full Review | Jan 23, 2009

Neil Jordan uses very broad and movie-ish strokes to paint his portrait of the busy, eponymous hero.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 18, 2008

Be sure to watch "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" if you watch "Michael Collins"

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 1, 2007

This is Jordan's most ambitious and satisfying movie -- a thriller with a real sense of scale, pace, menace and moral import.

| Jun 24, 2006

A bold and rousing historical epic.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 23, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 21, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 29, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 16, 2005

An intellectually well thought out work that presents the events of those turbulent days in Irish history with clear, vivid reality, from costumes to sets to location.

| Original Score: B | Apr 9, 2005

Neeson's a force of nature in Neil Jordan's near-excellent historical epic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 3, 2005

Instead of being a slow, dull historical drama, it is actually an exciting action drama.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 28, 2004