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

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

Genghis Khan's lost decade fuels a handsome fantasy.

| Jul 10, 2008

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

| Jun 29, 2008

A thoroughly rousing hunk of celluloid, a war saga that blends the sturdiest conventions of old-fashioned heroic storytelling with a few pixilated battle enhancements - check out the soaring blood globs - of the kind that spattered across 300.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 27, 2008

The action sequences here are first-rate, the performances are uniformly excellent, the cinematography as good as I've seen in any film this year.

Full Review | Jun 23, 2008

Bodrov's movie is most likely to be remembered for its fierce battle sequences, which frequently place the camera smack in the middle of the action.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 20, 2008

There are plenty of haunting landscapes... along with the sort of warfare scenes that define epics, but also an unexpected take on one of history's most fearsome leaders.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 20, 2008

A broad, old-fashioned epic in the David Lean mold.

| Original Score: B | Jun 20, 2008

Bodrov and Arif Aliyev wrote the film, which was one of this year's foreign-language Oscar nominees, and their account is framed as a drama of inflamed loins and intense loyalty.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 20, 2008

Asano's Khan is a hero in the classic mold, and the portrayal is riveting. Not entirely so the film, however, which concludes with a lengthy endnote as though it were Steppe Wars IV: A New Hope and Equal Plunder for All Men.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 20, 2008

A ferocious film, blood-soaked, pausing occasionally for passionate romance and more frequently for torture. As a visual spectacle, it is all but overwhelming, putting to shame some of the recent historical epics from Hollywood.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 20, 2008

Temudgin is so single-minded that Asano has trouble suggesting much about his inner life.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 20, 2008

Even the most intense human drama is somehow reduced by the landscape.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 20, 2008

The result is a wallow in old movie pleasures, full of battles, flying dust, thousands of men on horseback, beautiful women, treachery, slaughter, really cool hats and even more slaughter.

| Jun 19, 2008

The first part of what director Bodrov promises to be a trilogy tracing the life of the historic conqueror, Mongol is great cinema, great fun.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 19, 2008

A grandly kitschy rendering of Genghis Khan's early years, the ones revealing how a boy became a ruthless yet humane warrior, devoted family man and all-around good fellow, Mongol might as well be called Braveheart in a Yurt.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 19, 2008

The film, a foreign-language Oscar nominee, is epic in scope, in scale, in story, in everything. It has as much action as any brain-dead Hollywood blockbuster, but Mongol also has heart and intelligence.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 19, 2008