The silliness-much of which is clearly intentional-is blended with some genuine grandeur. The Pixar touch is evident in the precision of the visual detail and in the wit and energy of Michael Giacchino's score, but the quality control that has been exercised over this project also has a curiously undermining effect. The movie eagerly sells itself as semitrashy, almost-campy fun, but it is so lavish and fussy that you can't help thinking that it wants to be taken seriously, and therefore you laugh at, rather than with, its mock sublimity.
A. O. ScottNot just a timely movie, a great one...Timbuktu feels at once timely and permanent, immediate and essential.
A. O. ScottPearl Harbor is strenuously respectful of contemporary sensitivities, sometimes at the cost of accuracy.
A. O. Scott