The Magic Flute (2006)
Movie Info
Watch it now
Cast
as Tamino
as Pamina
as Papageno
as Papagena
as Sarastro
as Queen of the Night
as Monostatos
as Old Papagena
as Three Ladies
as Three Ladies
as Three Ladies
Critic Reviews for The Magic Flute
All Critics (22) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (15) | Rotten (7)
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.
In the end, love triumphs. In this movie, the music triumphs, proving again that a true masterpiece can survive all kinds of meddling.
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.
Opera buffs shouldn't throw away their DVDs of Ingmar Bergman's 1975 TV movie.
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.
It never adds up to more than a curiosity for opera fans.
Audience Reviews for The Magic Flute
In this adaptation of Mozart's classic opera, Tamino is fights for his love in World War I era trenches. Kenneth Brannagh, whose Shakespearean adaptations don't always use the advantages of film, makes up for it in this rendition of Mozart's opera. Visual effects abound in Brannagh's best imitation of Julie Taymor, and while some of them are effective, most of the visual stylings do little to advance the plot even though they're fun to look at. The acting and the singing are the real highlights of this film; many of the actors, particularly Benjamin Jay Davis, are able to satisfy the high demands of opera while focusing their work for the film. Overall, I enjoyed this film even though Brannagh is no Julie Taymor.
Super Reviewer
The Magic Flute Quotes
There are no approved quotes yet for this movie.