Michael Collins: Critic Reviews

Played with great magnetism and triumphant bluster by Liam Neeson, the film's Michael Collins easily lives up to his nickname.

Collins, who died at 31, was arguably the key figure in the struggles that led to the separation of Ireland and Britain. He was also, on the basis of this film, a man able to use violence without becoming intoxicated by it.

Intelligent, enormously accomplished and seriously problematic, Neil Jordan's ambitious account of the activities of arguably the central figure in Ireland's painful, bloody fight for independence from the British Empire has a great deal to offer...

While Michael Collins does distort elements of history, most of the changes and compressions are dramatically effective.

There are pain and honor in [Neeson's] performance, and they constantly rise up to redeem a film that is less probing, less thoughtful than its director's claims and aspirations for it.

Jordan always had 6-foot-4 Liam Neeson in mind to play the man they called "the Big Fellow," and it's more than size that makes Neeson fit the part of a leader known for his "cloudburst temperament."

While the film is unflinching in its depiction of the brutality of both the English and the Irish, Jordan pointedly dissociates his hero from any actual ugliness.

Bad history perhaps, but Neeson's performance borders on the brilliant.

Neil Jordan uses very broad and movie-ish strokes to paint his portrait of the busy, eponymous hero.

Be sure to watch "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" if you watch "Michael Collins"

This is Jordan's most ambitious and satisfying movie -- a thriller with a real sense of scale, pace, menace and moral import.

A bold and rousing historical epic.

An intellectually well thought out work that presents the events of those turbulent days in Irish history with clear, vivid reality, from costumes to sets to location.

Neeson's a force of nature in Neil Jordan's near-excellent historical epic.

Instead of being a slow, dull historical drama, it is actually an exciting action drama.

A way to relate pivotal events to an audience who probably knows little about the Irish republic's creation.

Michael Collins is more-or-less accurate, but being accurate and giving a complete picture of the Irish Troubles are two different things.