Vittorio Storaro, who won an Oscar for his cinematography, keeps the long film moving at a healthy pace, mixing static shots with subtle camera movement, never showing off or detracting from the story.

an epic love story ... As a teenager I saw it four times in the theater (which I now find pretty astonishing, considering the movie is well more than three hours long -- I had a lot more free time in 1981!)

Viewed today, it's not so effortlessly impressive, but it's still an uncommonly intelligent and quite entertaining film.

One of the most ambitious Hollywood films of the 80s, Reds is trying to do too much (historical epic, political expose, and romance), but the insertion of interviews with contemporaries of John Reed is original and poignant.

It's tragic that more American filmmakers aren't taking risks like this at a time like this.

A left-leaning pretty boy's distended, black book ramblings.

Marred by historical bluff and jarring cutesiness, 'Reds' is nevertheless the sweeping melodramatic stuff of classic moviemaking.

Were it not for the antique clothing and music, you wouldn't know that the dialogue isn't taking place in the 21st century.

Reds is finally just an appealingly conventional epic movie-star romance with radical trimmings, but it contains several sharper elements that suggest the colorful period it seeks to recreate.

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