Protraph
Lack of good storyline.
Konterr
Brilliant and touching
Doomtomylo
a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Katrina Fleming
If you know the story of Don Quixote, the Man from LaMancha you will find this film to be very clever in its layering of the original tale intertwined with a new tale that is infused about a narcissistic director (Adam Driver) who has lost his creative mojo whilst filming a feature film about Don Quixote in Spain. True to its original intent, it is a hybrid of reality and fantasy with the cruelties of the world as a backdrop to what could be with a touch of madness. It has much to say about youthful and brave creativity, and the artistic freedom that comes from true independence and the necessity of reframing your reality to match your circumstance. Love, passion, friendship, empathy, and generosity of spirit are explored in a modern version of the Spanish Inquisition. The jailhouse sequences are sublime in their mash up of real and unreal. It is a clever, witty and multilayered script with much for the literate fan to digest and plenty for newcomers to the tale to learn. Jonathan Price is perfect as Don Quixote and Adam Driver manages to deliver skepticism, narcissism and empathy along an increasingly complex tightrope with ease. The script is a marvel and the directing and edit are to be applauded. I don't know what the film offers people unfamiliar with the original story- but as I've been waiting for many years to see this film I can say it does not disappoint, I'll be thinking about it for a long, long time. Well done Terry Gillem
tom-swinnen-883-165386
Let me start by stealing a line from another review:
"Quixote reminds us of the romantic ideal that the world needs dreamers who dare to defy convention. "Terry Gilliam has always been that dreamer. And so have I.
And that's why this movie made me sad. It's both an ode and a swansong to the world of dreamers. Moving along the same lines as the fantastical Baron Munchausen or the embellishing of Tim Burton's Big Fish, Don Quixote mixes fantasy with reality, fiction with fact and gives both hope and warning to dreamers in this world. It's not without its flaws. But reality never is.
Lance_Tait
There are those who have a deep desire to see beauty and even be part of it. There are also those who are on moral quests. There are people who are excited by the imaginative. If this is you this movie may turn out to be a favorite of yours. The movie is not a retelling of the Don Quixote novel. It's a variation on the themes, the landscapes, the yearnings and other ingredients in the original Spanish source (Cervantes). Universal ideas and conflicts from it are reworked and put in different contexts. Gilliam's best for a long time? We'll see. I would say that it's loftier than he's gone before (but with some low comic touches for sure). There are many storyline twists in 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.' In addition, the movie business is satirized (sometimes with a feather, sometimes with a hammer). As for the locations: Gilliam has chosen them with great care; the cinematography does not let his gorgeous choices down. The directing, acting and music are superb. To date, (for me anyway) these are the most memorable film performances by Jonathan Pryce, Adam Driver, and some others in the cast. Pryce is eloquent but above all touching; Driver is perfect as the freaked-out guy who needs to escape the mess. Other characters/actors give me the creeps or fill me with praise for their spot-on nasty or nice performances.
jay-ros
Not a masterpiece, not a disaster, The man who killed Don Quixote has the qualities and faults of what it is, that is to say, basically, a film for one spectator only : Terry Gilliam himself.
Announcing its legend in the opening credits, the film takes pleasure in referring quite openly to the misadventures of Lost in La Mancha, most often through lines put in the mouth of the producer played by Stellan Skarsgard. These winks would be at best anecdotic, at worst narcissistic, if we didn't realize little by little that, we are in the presence of a true cinematic exorcism. Exorcism of this damned project, certainly. Exorcism also, through the character of Toby, of what Gilliam could have become if he had listened to the sirens of advertising and had become a soulless hack. Exorcism finally, and this is the most touching, of what Gilliam is afraid of becoming (and that he may have already become for some), that is to say an old fool who no longer interests anyone, an old dreamer in a materialistic world, a relic from another time, mocked and ridiculed. Thus, despite all its failures (problems of rhythm, lack of breath due to lack of money, episodic structure that works randomly and unfortunately makes Quixote disappear many times), we can only admire this film which bears on its face its testamentary dimension. Transmission, summary of a life, return on his youth, everything is there. Gilliam is Quixote, Gilliam is Toby, Gilliam will die but Gilliam is immortal since his dreams are forever with us on film. This is the bittersweet and somewhat crazy statement of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a film about films, a story about stories, an endless dream.