Mongol redeems sweeping epics filled with armies engaging in bloody swordplay, volleys of arrows, and slow-motion combat, even while embracing all their formulaic elements, by simply getting it right.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 9, 2024

Gorgeous imagery, visceral battles, and powerful storytelling.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 28, 2020

Surprisingly accurate historically, beautifully designed, and well-acted.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 17, 2020

From the hardships of filming to the fight for authenticity, as did his subject succeed, so does Bodrov, as he show us the man behind the mnoster with Mongol.

| Nov 13, 2019

The majority of the film is top notch epic filmmaking, expertly crafted and beautifully paced by Bodrov, but the final act leaves a lot to be desired.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 6, 2019

For its two-hour running time, Mongol makes you believe that you're in the company of the future Khan and his companions as they struggle to endure the callousness of the times and the savage environment.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 6, 2018

Stunning to look at, but as an engaging, illuminating, convincing piece of cinema? No, not really.

| Jan 27, 2018

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

This would have been one of the greatest all time epics, but there were some major gaps in the story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 17, 2008

...probably not the movie most audiences expected.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 10, 2008

Visually stunning, historically interesting, and very entertaining.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 8, 2008

It's a lumbering, emotionally cold, slow-going old-fashioned escapist sweeping biopic on the early years of Genghis Khan.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 19, 2008

When we think of the fearsome Genghis Khan, we don't picture him as ever having been a little boy. But he must have been, and that is where this grand throwback to the sweeping historical epics of yesteryear takes up the Great Khan's story.

| Jul 11, 2008

... Bodrov's engaging vision of Genghis Khan in several moments almost feels like the silent movie epics by the Russian cinematic pioneer Sergei Eisenstein.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2008

Genghis Khan's lost decade fuels a handsome fantasy.

| Jul 10, 2008

Hell has no wrath like a Khan scorned.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 9, 2008

A saga of blood feuds, betrayals, vendettas, and a lot of fighting The film is entertaining but more macho than intelligent.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 7, 2008

It must have been a pretty weak year for subtitled fare if the Oscar voters sought to praise this inert, inept epic.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jul 5, 2008

Mongol has just enough characterization to sustain its own reason for being -- cinematic fullness.

| Jun 29, 2008