Midnight's Children is simply too long, too glossy, and too safe to reach the epic level it seems to be attempting.

| Aug 12, 2019

Deepa Mehta deserves kudos for directing the magisterial Midnight's Children, although it's a shame screenwriter Salman Rushdie wasn't more ruthless with his own novel.

| Jul 31, 2019

Particularly thanks to Rushdie's involvement as a co-screenwriter, it is easy to feel not only the characters of his novel coming to life, but indeed, the mystical quality of its history.

| Jun 21, 2019

Deepa Mehta's film is only intermittently engaging: it is limited in scope and imagination, and in parts it becomes plodding and stagey.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 21, 2019

There is undoubtedly a compelling story to be found within Midnight's Children... but the lack of focus means that it feels more like a vignette than the main narrative it perhaps should have been.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 7, 2019

The trouble with... Midnight's Children, aside from the fact it is a mess and a muddle, is that it goes on and on and on and on. And on. And on. And then, just when you think it has to be over, it goes on some more.

| Sep 4, 2018

Never complex enough to work as an allegory of the complex relationship between India and Pakistan.

| May 15, 2018

The general consensus was, while it was beautifully shot, it lacked heart.

| Aug 17, 2017

Midnight's Children is a vibrant epic that spans about 30 years and has a cast of thousands.

| Aug 9, 2017

In dream-like meetings, the diverse gang of "Midnight's Children" first embodies divisions across culture, class, and politics, but as the story unfolds, it reveals where unity has the potential to be restored.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 7, 2016

There's nothing to hang onto here. Most scenes last only two or three minutes, and events don't accrue so much as they just pig-pile on top of one another.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2015

Amidst all the exuberance on screen, a major literary work has been given a new and accessible form of life.

| Jun 14, 2013

A miniseries might have been able to knock this story out of the park, but the movie is a solid double.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 6, 2013

The effort to pack an already overstuffed picaresque epic into a film of more than two hours ends up an indigestible stew.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 24, 2013

Rushdie's script is faithful to his source novel to a fault. The lesson is that writers revisiting their work for another medium sometimes can't see the story for the words...

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 20, 2013

A highly eventful, allegorical portrait of the contentious dual nature of the Indian subcontinent.

| May 17, 2013

Teeming with personality and digestible flights of fancy, only to be crushed by the overall narrative responsibility, unable to juggle faces and places to satisfaction.

| Original Score: C | May 15, 2013

A sprawling, lumbering epic that manages to preserve a substantial amount of the book's content but achieves little of its magic.

| Original Score: C | May 10, 2013

The film is beautifully shot, with vivid production design. But because of the tale's lack of cohesion, it doesn't carry enough emotional heft.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 9, 2013

Faithfully adapted from Salman Rushdie's award-winning 1981 novel, the movie feels both too packed and too slight, overflowing with vivid details but lacking the structure to support their weight.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 9, 2013