... something about The Tempest just didn't work for me. When I see Taymor's name on a film I'm expecting something grand and beautifully fantastic, and this just fell a little flat.

| Mar 7, 2019

With the exception of Ben Whishaw - who with the help of some imaginative CGI and his own beautiful verse-speaking - the rest of the actors mouth the lines without much élan.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 2, 2018

Julie Taymor has a theatre director's idea of how movies work. That's not a compliment.

Full Review | May 3, 2015

Dispensing with tableau compositions, this adaptation feels liberated from static theatrical and, to a lesser degree, cinematic convention by the overall openness of its staging and camerawork that's somewhere between handheld and Steadicam.

| Jun 28, 2013

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 22, 2013

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 22, 2013

| Original Score: C- | Jan 22, 2013

There are two reasons to watch The Tempest: if you're a fan of Shakespeare, or a fan of Helen Mirren.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 29, 2011

Hundreds of years ago, Shakespeare would have never imagined this story could look like Taymor's vision.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 28, 2011

Taymor tries a little too hard, neither breaking nor broken by the play, but ultimately losing the wrestling match. [Blu-ray]

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 20, 2011

Taymor excels at creating visuals that are so beautiful you want to hang every frame on your wall, but content-wise this film falls really flat.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 29, 2011

The film has plenty of detractors who see Taymor's approach as strained and overwrought, but Mirren finds some grace notes that no Prospero could ever have sounded.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 20, 2011

While this had the potential to be a stirring cinematic experience, director Julie Taymor's trademark innovation and visual flair never soars.

| Apr 20, 2011

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 4, 2011

Shakespeare is spinning in his grave.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 23, 2011

As a re-imagining, particularly by a director so well renowned, The Tempest is depressingly pedestrian.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 13, 2011

[M]essy but thrilling... [B]rings a new perspective on the play, and a new appreciation for it, which is the best we can ask for the umpteenth adaptation of a centuries-old work...

| Mar 7, 2011

A noble stab at the Bard but ultimately an unsatisfactory film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 7, 2011

The special effects are intrusive and anything but magical and the text is rather curiously edited. But it's worth seeing for Mirren.

| Mar 7, 2011

Despite the best efforts of an impressive cast, Taymor's adaptation ends up a curious mix of arse-achingly dull, and clangingly misjudged.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Mar 7, 2011