Giant: Critic Reviews

Giant, for all its complexity, is a strong contender for the year's top-film award.

Much of it is awful, but it's almost impossible not to be taken in by the narrative sprawl.

An excellent film which registers strongly on all levels, whether it's in its breathtaking panoramic shots of the dusty Texas plains; the personal, dramatic impact of the story itself, or the resounding message it has to impart.

Although Giant may not be a classic in the purest sense of the word, it's a fine example of a virtually-extinct genre.

A real movie is big, grand, magnificent and regales you with all the power that movies can wield upon a viewer's imagination and spirit. George Stevens' 1956 production, Giant, is a real movie.

At 202 minutes, it's just too long, yet it has the pull of nostalgia (if you're of a certain age) and sustains its emotional impact as a portrait of a durable marriage.

Its deeper themes and superb performances from Taylor, Hudson and Dean make it a classic Hollywood epic.

Like the title says.

Dean's last performance is poetry in motion.

Stevens' sprawling epic of Texan life, taken from Edna Ferber's novel, strives so hard for Serious Statements that it ends up as a long yawn.

Modern critics consider Giant to be a bloated, sprawling, and pretentious saga, but by the era's standards, it exposed idelogical cracks in the American dream, such as the myth of melting pot and women's anxiety over their allotted place in society.

For a reason I cannot fathom, Giant still has a reputation as a fine film, and it will no doubt go on boring audiences forever and a day.

An uneven, but satisfying variation on the traditional western.

Old-fashioned life-of-a-family pic that's like nothing you'll see today -- and I mean that in the best way possible.

Overrated, overlong, and marred by some of the worst old age make-up ever seen.

A decent sprawling family epic. Surprised somebody hasn't remade it for television.

Essential viewing

remains an entertaining film for many of its small moments

Offers a lively portrait of a marriage that weathers all storms and evolves over time into something more than it was at the outset.

Giant is a gentle monstrosity.

If Texas had a state movie, then Giant would be it.