Disappearances Reviews

It's an ambitious work and shouldn't be too readily dismissed for its semi-successful foray into spirit-land. There is much else to enjoy and a wonderful terrain to discover.

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There's a special Boy Scout charm to it all that I was enchanted with.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

The movie has a literary quality, and not just because everyone's always quoting Shakespeare.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

A marvelous, subtly crafted elegy to a bygone era that balances its scenes of violence and gunplay with laconic humor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

The beautifully photographed Disappearances is solidly old-fashioned entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

If you're one of those people (like this reviewer) who can watch Kris Kristofferson do just about anything, you won't insist on the references being that solid.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Though set in Vermont in the 1930s, this has the feel of a Western -- one with mystical overtones -- and provides a great role for Kris Kristofferson, who's looking well weathered these days.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Shot for only $1.7 million, but it's a thoroughly entertaining, first-class job in every way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

An utterly earnest, likable enough family-focused action-adventure.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

A frontier spirit and a strong connection to the landscape inform the piece, which aims not to wow but to immerse the viewer in a mystical, hardscrabble, bygone world.

A stirringly acted frontier tale, infused with bewildering magical-realist touches that may prove trying to viewers less attuned to its visual pleasures.

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Full Review | Original Score: C-

Labored, a bit of backwoods magical realism that wants to soar but never takes off.

Full Review | Original Score: C

Magic realism is a tricky thing to pull off in a movie, and Disappearances, the third of Mr. Craven's films based on Mr. Mosher's novels, only occasionally succeeds.

| Original Score: 2.5/5

Craven never quite manages to make it all seem a smoothly integrated piece.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

The film is lovely to look at, but makes not a lick of sense.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

Alas, the story descends into mystical mumbo jumbo.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/6

Craven layers the film's central narrative concerns with mounds of metaphorical gunk, most of which proves more ponderous than entrancing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Jay Craven's stilted adaptation of a novel by Howard Frank Mosher lacks the urgency, the poetry, or the feeling for period that might have brought the material to life, while the cast seems to be largely squandered.

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This scenic adventure is too fussy with metaphysical lore.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

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