Tombstone

Highly stylized fashion-wise but awkwardly unfocused in its plotlines, it aims for the western iconography of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone but never gets past its own directorial hurdles. Read full review

Tombstone remains a shamelessly entertaining movie, filled with lively turns from virtually every appropriate actor not working on the Costner version. Read full review

Doesn't really cut it in the Western genre. Read full review

Tombstone is incredibly entertaining. While not entirely original and not always well executed, it manages to keep your attention for the entire 130-minute duration. And let's face it, Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday is what really sets it apart. Read full review

A few stirring shoot-'em-ups help relieve the logjam of cliches. Director George P. (Rambo) Cosmatos does an OK job at the O.K. Corral. But even the good stuff goes on for too long. Read full review

Tombstone is a movie that wants to have it both ways. It wants to be at once traditional and morally ambiguous. The two visions don't quite harmonize. Read full review

Kilmer makes a surprisingly effective and effete Holliday, but Russell lacks the stature for Earp - Sam Elliott as his older brother Virgil suggests a better movie. There's a misguided romantic subplot and the ending rather sprawls, but mostly this is rootin', tootin' entertainment with lots of authentic facial hair. Read full review

Though apparently conceived as a revisionist Western, Tombstone falls prey to the cliches of the genre, and its last third is a muddle. Read full review

As much as these actors heroically struggle to focus the film, the director more successfully hacks it apart. But if you really love Westerns, despite its faults, it's got to be recommended for Kilmer's performance alone. Read full review

This has plenty of designer gore to go with its periodic spurts of bloodletting, and a lot of care and attention were obviously devoted to selecting locations, designing sets, and grooming handlebar mustaches. Much less attention went to making one believe that any of the events took place circa 1879, but at least the bursts of action keep coming, and most survive Cosmatos's addiction to smoldering close-ups. Read full review

If only director George P. Cosmatos (Rambo) knew how to do something with cliches other than throw them into the pot and stir. A preposterously inflated 135 minutes long, Tombstone plays like a three-hour rough cut that’s been trimmed down to a slightly shorter rough cut. Read full review

Director George Cosmatos brings nothing new to this Wyatt Earp saga except leftover bullets from previous films Cobra and Rambo: First Blood Part II. [23 Dec 1993, p.5D]

Tombstone is a big Christmas pudding of a neo-Peckinpah Western that doesn't quite hang together and is a bit too self-conscious about its looks. [24 Dec 1993, p.23]

As shamelessly as Tombstone rips off pieces of Unforgiven, you can rest assured none of them relate to Eastwood's strong portrayal of women -- or his antipathy toward violence. The latest shootout at the O.K. Corral is only a prelude to your basic bloodletting in the name of mass entertainment. [24 Dec 1993, p.25]

A sloppy, schizophrenic effort; a rollicking parody, a somber romantic tragedy, an orgy of violence and an incomplete work on all fronts. [24 Dec 1993, p.9]

These post-Unforgiven westerns are a tricky business. The classics were mythical morality tales, good vs. evil played out with pistols and black and white hats. But look at today's headlines: Killing is rampant, guns are a plague and violence is no joking matter. The somewhat overlong Tombstone ultimately can't reconcile these conflicting impulses either, but at least it consistently entertains as it tries. [24 Dec 1993, p.C]

For the most part, Tombstone is inept. Some of the performances are wincingly bad: Dana Delany, playing a touring actress with the hots for Wyatt, is particularly embarrassing. Director George P. Cosmatos (Leviathan) firmly cements his hack status: He takes nearly an hour to get things rolling, then fails to build any sort of momentum. [25 Dec 1993, p.F1]

Tombstone, in spite of its action-movie pacing, becomes an awkward, unconvincing tale as Russell's stubbornly benevolent Earp is slowly nudged by moral compunction into fighting various scourges, not the least of them a vicious gang of red-sashed cowboys led by Curly Bill (Powers Booth) and his fiendishly cool gunslinging sidekick, Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn). [25 Dec 1993, p.E1]

Unfortunately, director George P. Cosmatos, who took over when Jarre was fired as director, emphasizes action over character. [25 Dec 1993, p.C2]

A little bit like a barroom brawl: noisy, senseless, silly but somehow watchable.

Tombstone has quite a lot going for it, at least for the first hour, including all those colorful characters and lots and lots of action. [27 Dec 1993, p.D1]

Tombstone is a tough-talking but soft-hearted tale that is entertaining in a sprawling, old-fashioned manner. Read full review