Babel
Paramount Vantage | Release Date: October 27, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Rolling StonePeter Travers
In the year's richest, most complex and ultimately most heartbreaking film, Inarritu invites us to get past the babble of modern civilization and start listening to each other. Read full review
100
New York PostLou Lumenick
This is a serious movie overflowing with memorable acting, unforgettable images, searing tragedy, unexpected humor and an eloquent plea for international understanding. And while it's by no stretch of imagination light entertainment, it's fundamentally a more optimistic work than either "Amores Perros" or "21 Grams." Read full review
90
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Effectively building dread and emotional tension as tragic incidents triggered by human stupidity and carelessness steadily multiply, this film, like "21 Grams" in particular, employs a deterministically grim mindset in the cause of its philosophical aspirations, but is gripping nearly all the way. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
The filmmakers succeed brilliantly in weaving these stories together, taking time to explore depth of character and relationships. The suspense builds throughout as everyone involved becomes lost in a place they don't understand with people they don't know if they can trust. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's a masterful film, the kind you itch to see twice or more, as elliptical as a dream and as direct as the short sharp shock of lead kissing flesh. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Its complex (yet not mystifying) storytelling, forceful character development, and superb cinematography make this a candidate for one of 2006's best offerings. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Babel may be the most ambitious movie of the year, tackling towering communication barriers, global politics and cultural divides in a structurally complex and fascinating narrative. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
A powerful movie that should win all the year's ensemble acting awards. Pitt has never done better dramatic work, Blanchett is as convincing as always, and - in introducing themselves to American audiences - veteran Mexican actress Barraza and Japan's Kikuchi are revelations. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
It's a powerhouse, demanding film that sometimes stretches the limits of credibility. But it's done with such consistent technical brilliance--and with such a first-rate cast and company. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Even as Inarritu has matured as a craftsman, he has stood perhaps one beat too long in the same place as a storyteller. In ways, Babel is his best work, but it's time to move on. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Schickel
Babel is a movie that leaves you feeling limp and wrung out, but mysteriously moved by its vivid human encounters with the hot, tightly wired, chancy and coincidental world, ever capable of terrorizing us when we least expect it. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
In the end Babel, like that tower in the book of Genesis, is a grand wreck, an incomplete monument to its own limitless ambition. But it is there, on the landscape, a startling and imposing reality. It's a folly, and also, perversely, a wonder. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The beauty of this film is in its lapidary details, which sparkle with feeling and surprise. Read full review
80
SlateDana Stevens
Babel has great expectations for itself: It wants to be a movie about big ideas and big emotions at the same time. Aided by gorgeous locations and classy trappings (cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto, theme music by Gustavo Santaolalla), it succeeds for the most part. Read full review
80
EmpireIan Freer
It may be too slow for some tastes, but Babel remains emotionally bruising but compulsive viewing. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The flashy spectacle of intersecting narratives and its crosscutting and fractured chronology nearly overwhelms the film's simple message, in this case that despite divisions of language, race and geography, we're all connected. Read full review
75
PremiereJessica Letkemann
While you can never completely put the fact that you are watching Pitt and Blanchett out of your mind, they both give charged, emotional performances. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
It offers razor-sharp editing, first-rate performances, direction that yields maximum emotional effect and a flabby, unconvincing screenplay. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The movie doesn't quite achieve the transcendent effect it reaches for, saddled with an ending that fails to live up to our expectations. But the experience of watching Babel is undeniably riveting: Even if the film doesn't really lead anywhere, you still can't take your eyes off it. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Though Babel lacks any tragic sense of inevitability, it almost compensates with a handful of vibrant performances and the palpable physical texture of the settings.
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Repeatedly, Iñárritu and Arriaga stop themselves just short of suggesting that we're all going to hell in a hand basket. Had they not -- well, then Babel might really have been onto something. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
I hate to criticize anybody for artistic ambition, but the problem with Babel isn't that it's a bad movie. It's a good movie, or, more accurately, it's several pieces of good movie, chopped up in service of a pretentious, portentous and slightly silly artistic vision. Read full review
70
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
The film is technically superior, and its look and the strength of its performances (Blanchett, Barraza, and Kikuchi especially) carry it above similar fare. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Measured in anything other than biblical cubits, the sum of Babel's many parts turns out to be a picture that suggests Americans ought to stay home and treat their nannies better. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Messrs. Iñárritu and Arriaga have played this card one too many times. If they really want to appear radical the next time out, my advice is: Tell a single story and tell it well. What a concept. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
When the best part of the movie is when no one's talking and the anguish relents, it says something. It says that Iñárritu is a great director in need of a screenwriter who has more than one card to play. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
All told, the movie also is a tremendous downer. The script goes for a vaguely upbeat conclusion, but it has no spiritual dimension that the viewer feels with any emotion, and it conveys a hopeless, pessimistic future for the interconnected world that it portrays. Read full review
67
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Comes across as more willfully clever than profound, leaving us to applaud the message while pondering why the messenger had to strain so hard to get it across. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Babel is a ziggurat of brilliant pieces built on sand. It's also this season's "Crash," a movie you know is Important because it never stops telling you so. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
I was shaken, but not stirred, by Babel, a globalist melodrama that careens from Morocco to Mexico like a revved-up "Crash." Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
In their last collaboration, "21 Grams," the director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga did syntactical acrobatics to disguise what a dreary and exploitive little soap opera they’d made. Their new movie, Babel, is more mysterious and less coherent. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Babel is an infuriatingly well-made disaster. Read full review
50
NewsweekDavid Ansen
I might buy Babel if it had any real interest in its characters, but it's too busy moving them around its mechanistic chessboard to explore any nuances or depths. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Unlike many colleagues, I'm not a fan of "Amores Perros" or "21 Grams," scripted by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu. This conclusion to their trilogy is easier to follow as a narrative, but it's even more pretentious, generalizing about the state of the modern world. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's a film of unquestioned visual artistry, and the filmmakers' empathy and human understanding are apparent moment to moment, scene by scene. But despite sensitive performances, it's an experiment that fizzles. Read full review
40
Village VoiceJim Ridley
Puzzle master Arriaga may be the Will Shortz of globalized hand-wringing, but the by-now-predictable jigsawing of his scripts reeks of desperation. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
The ultimate poor judgment: the decision to put Babel before the camera. That defies comprehension in any language.
40
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Yet as sophisticated a piece of filmmaking as it is, it seems hamstrung by the banality at its center; that's why it never assembles into a satisfying whole. It's pretty -- oh, what's the word? -- stupid in its dramatization of the silly little connections that unite us, and it's somewhat selective in its choice of them. Read full review
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