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The Magic Flute (2006)

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Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 4
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 1

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61

liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 660

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Movie Info

Acclaimed director Kenneth Branagh skillfully lifts one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most beloved works from its original fairy-tale setting and places it against the backdrop of the First World War with this impassioned English-language adaptation staged to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the master composer's birth. Tamino (Joseph Kaiser) has been wounded in battle, but his life is saved when he is subsequently rescued by three kindly field nurses. Papageno (Benjamin Jay Davis) is a

Idéale Audience

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All Critics (19) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (14) | Rotten (5)

The results are often fascinating (I love the duet of the Armed Men, sung by a chorus of faces animated out of a wall of sandbags), sometimes ludicrous and never boring.

March 20, 2009 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

In the end, love triumphs. In this movie, the music triumphs, proving again that a true masterpiece can survive all kinds of meddling.

March 20, 2009 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
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Opera buffs shouldn't throw away their DVDs of Ingmar Bergman's 1975 TV movie.

September 23, 2006 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Even though there were moments in The Magic Flute when I wondered if Branagh hadn't truly gone off his rocker, I found its audacity exhilarating.

September 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Salon.com | Comment
Salon.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It dwells quite happily somewhere in the no-man's-land between "Perfect" and "Perfectly Enjoyable."

March 20, 2009 Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | Comment
Jam! Movies

Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute comes on strong ... maybe too strong...

January 8, 2008 Full Review Source: MovieMartyr.com | Comment
MovieMartyr.com

A week is a long time in cinema. Last Friday saw Branagh being all but written off thanks to the ludicrous Sleuth. This week, he's hitting the high notes.

November 30, 2007 Full Review Source: This is London | Comment
This is London

His flamboyant rendering of the Mozart opera isn't as smug and stagey as Sleuth, but it is insufferable - and 40 minutes longer.

November 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Independent | Comment
Independent

With James Conlon conducting, this Flute is perfectly in tune - so it's a shame Branagh keeps dropping it in the mud.

November 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | Comment
Daily Telegraph

The film is fresh, spectacular and unafraid to be called philistine.

November 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Financial Times | Comment
Financial Times

A genial and good-natured production with much spectacle and entertainment to offer, and, like all of Branagh's classical revivals on celluloid, it manages to be high-minded and yet accessible.

November 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

Despite the talent involved - Branagh is joined by Stephen Fry, who has written a new libretto - and the ambitious staging, this flute blows all right, but it's short on the magic.

November 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Times [UK] | Comment
Times [UK]

Flashes of inspiration but not enough, one suspects, to cause a stampeding horde of cinemagoers to beat down the doors of the Royal Opera House.

November 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

It's an impressive undertaking by Branagh but a rather pointless one.

November 29, 2007 Full Review Source: Sky Movies | Comment
Sky Movies

A huge budget allows for spectacular CGI sequences and Branagh concocts some startlingly inspired ways to accompany Mozart's music in visuals.

November 29, 2007 Full Review Source: BBC | Comment

Branagh's imagery is imaginative and the music lifts you. A neat trick.

November 29, 2007 Full Review Source: Total Film | Comment
Total Film

Apart from a fascination with the hate-spitting mouth and throat of Lyubov Petrova's vocally pyrotechnic Queen of the Night, the visual gimmicks are individually tolerable. But they don't add up to anything particular.

November 29, 2007 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Although Branagh has done a good job of toning down the opera's more ridiculous elements, what remains will test even the most willing opera virgin.

November 28, 2007 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Miles away from the cute theatrical film adaptation of Ingmar Bergman, though bigger in this case is not necessarily better.

September 8, 2006 Full Review Source: european-films.net | Comment
european-films.net
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Magic Flute

I did enjoy it, but it is all a little bit too much: unlike the music, which is just right of course. There are several laugh-out-loud moments and the acting is really excellent throughout. The settings are often disconcerting - rather like a bad dream at times: but I think that is intentional. I'm not sure the first

May 29, 2011

Kenneth Branagh, que parecía abonado en exclusiva a las adaptaciones más o menos traicioneras de Shakespeare, abrió el reciente Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla con una versión filmada de La flauta mágica, la célebre ópera de Mozart. Con un guión elaborado a pachas con Stephen Fry, al que últimamente se le pudo ver

November 24, 2006
Nasholi
Antonio Real Morillo

The Magic Flute Quotes

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Foreign Titles

  • La flauta mágica (ES)
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