Dominik Moll never addresses Matthew Gregory Lewis's original groundbreaking ideas in The Monk, nor does he rework the material for a contemporary audience.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 8, 2013

A work whose elegant atmospherics ultimately overwhelm the story, even with the terrific Vincent Cassel in the title role.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 7, 2013

What repulsed Coleridge in the novel clearly amuses the French director Dominik Moll in his diverting if somewhat thin adaptation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 7, 2013

By the end, "The Monk" has revealed itself to be a too- predictable potboiler, served piping hot.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 7, 2013

A beautiful-looking film that portends disaster. And disaster arrives, eventually. It just takes its time getting there.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 7, 2013

Not bad for a robe-ripper along the lines of The Thorn Birds, but Diary of a Country Priest it ain't.

| Mar 7, 2013

"The Monk" is, first and foremost, a classy B-movie, keen to offer Gothic atmosphere, nudity, and mild shocks.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 7, 2013

There's always room for another adaptation of Matthew Lewis's 1795 scandal-igniting ur-Gothic novel, and this lavish French turn positively seethes with the strain of Christian sex-dread and debauchery.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 5, 2013

The finale, in which godly rites are juxtaposed against the vilest of sins, builds to an unholy power.

| Mar 5, 2013

Adaptation of gothic classic pleases the eye but ultimately disappoints.

| Mar 4, 2013

The movie broods like nobody's business, setting us up for a temptingly black slab of cassocks-off ecclesiastical depravity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 28, 2012

If it weren't for The Cabin in the Woods we'd call it the most disappointing denouement of the year.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 27, 2012

The movie, though beautifully lit and full of atmosphere, fails to ignite, even when Geraldine Chaplin as a nasty mother superior is on screen.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 27, 2012

It is not a story of great depth or passion, but there are intriguing and unsettling moments on its well-crafted surface.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 26, 2012

It's a silly film - 1970s soft-porny - but not without a certain ominousness.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 26, 2012

The kind of film that works its magic after you leave the cinema.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 26, 2012

The photography and design are high points, with a night-time religious procession that is very freaky indeed.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 24, 2012

It's interesting and unsettling, with a charismatic lead performance, but nowhere near as shocking as it should be.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 23, 2012