Gods and Generals
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: February 21, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
30
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
10
Negative:
18
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Has the unfortunate effect of overtipping the dramatic scales in favor of the Southern generals and turning almost everybody into waxen idols who spout flowery rhetoric. Read full review
60
Washington PostStephen Hunter
One doesn't come away from it with any sense of what the victory cost in human terms. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Lacks the driving unity that gave "Gettysburg" its focus, dramatic arc, climax and catharsis. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
If ever there was a movie that could cause even the most restless sleeper to fall into a deep slumber, this is it. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverJean Oppenheimer
Filled with so much religious righteousness--endless Bible-readings...that the film feels more like a recruitment tool for Soldiers for Christ than a look at the bloody four-year conflict that tore this nation apart. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyRon Stringer
By highlighting the human costs of slavery to everyone BUT the enslaved -- here, relations between African-American domestics and their owners are cordial, even respectful, on both sides -- Maxwell risks being pilloried as an apologist for that institution. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderBill Stamets
Maxwell continues his textbook emphasis on military maneuvers, but despite literally thousands of Civil War reenactors recruited for the film, the wide-screen canvas fails to map the tactics or evoke the terror of battle. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
As dry as a high school history book, solemn as a funeral service, humorless as a Politburo meeting, bloated as a waterlogged corpse and unbalanced as a bout between a debutante and a sumo wrestler. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineSteve Simels
By the film's finale the descent into unintentional parody is all but complete, with a big death scene for Jackson complete with an angelic choir on the soundtrack -- the surprise is that they aren't singing "Dixie." Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
Maxwell has populated his film with paragons rather than people. Worse, they talk and talk and talk; this film is in danger of talking itself to death before the Union and the Confederacy are able to decimate each other. Read full review
40
VarietyRobert Koehler
Gods and Generals is American history transformed into a museum movie, consistently making the flawed human characters at the heart of the Civil War into flawless figures Olympian in their statuesque remoteness. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
It may not be the worst war epic ever made - that probably would be "Battlefield Earth" -- but it's darn close to being an unqualified disaster of that magnitude. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Pious, high-minded and bad history. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The kind of movie beloved by people who never go to the movies, because they are primarily interested in something else--the Civil War, for example--and think historical accuracy is a virtue instead of an attribute. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
General Boredom meets Major Tedium on the Civil War fields of Virginia. Read full review
38
USA TodayMike Clark
You don't envy the three soldiers who get shot for desertion, but you do identify with their desire to flee. Read full review
33
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Bloodless and false. Read full review
30
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Less a movie than a meticulously, tediously accurate Civil War reenactment committed to celluloid. Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Playing in theaters when it belongs on television, where snacks and bathroom breaks can counteract its punishing dryness, and the option of watching something else doesn't involve driving home. Read full review
30
The New York TimesStephen Holden
A lumpy three-and-a-half-hour glob of Civil War history. Read full review
25
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Turner's guileless amateurism stands in refreshing contrast to the rest of the performances -- stilted, self-conscious and sleep-inducing -- that fill this tedious 3-1/2-hour marathon, the Civil War in real time. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Sanctimonious claptrap -- an inert pageant of waxen figures that fails completely as drama even as it insults the sensibilities of anyone not clinging to rosy memories of the slave-era South. Read full review
25
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
At 225 minutes long, it feels like a trilogy in itself. That wouldn't be a problem if it had energy and imagination, but those qualities are missing, as is any sense of historical or philosophical context. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
What the filmmakers fail to recognize is that history on the page is quite different from what it needs to be onscreen, namely alive and visceral. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's a plodding, episodic film, reverent and sanctimonious, and its pro-Southern viewpoint -- a time-honored Hollywood tendency -- makes "Gone With the Wind" look like a Northern polemic. Read full review
25
New York PostJonathan Foreman
The film's staggering incompetence can be measured by the way it makes some of the most fascinating and heart-rending episodes in American history tedious. Read full review
20
Film ThreatKevin Carr
This is nothing but an attempt to cash in on the success of “Gettysburg.” Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
It comes off like so much poppycock -– to use the vernacular of the day. Read full review
10
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Shot with the TV-movie blahs, the film itself is nothing more than an elaborate reenactment, perfectly mating box-of-rocks acting (bring rotten fruit for Mia Dillon's Southern matriarch) and repetitious dialogue so scripturally florid Maxwell might qualify for a Comedy Screenplay Golden Globe next January. Read full review
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