The Kite Runner: Critic Reviews

[A] pretty good adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's pretty good 2003 best-seller.

Mr. Forster has been soundly defeated by The Kite Runner. Despite the film's far-flung locations, there is remarkably little of visual interest here; the setups are banal, and the scenes lack tension, which no amount of editing can provide.

A workmanlike, if decaffeinated version of Khaled Hosseini's bestselling novel.

The Kite Runner is a compelling and uplifting tale that exposes the viewer to an unfamiliar, fascinating culture and a family dynamic that is recognizable and nuanced.

A film of exhilarating, redemptive humanity, conveying an enduring sense of hope.

The Kite Runner will be loved by many moviegoers for its taste and humanity, but for all the places Forster takes us he doesn't show us anything we haven't seen.

Armed with a capably hands-off screenplay by David Benioff, [Forster] made a drama as bland and beige as its tasteful palette, whose pacing wouldn't look out of place in the Sunday-night slot on PBS.

The movie has two extraordinary characters and performances. Non-pro Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada breaks your heart as the innocent, wide-eyed child Hassan, and Homayoun Ershadi makes Amir's father a model of intuitive decency.

In a movie about a storyteller (Amir as an adult in America is played by Khalid Abdalla) the storytelling pace moves between deliberate and sluggish.

The Afghan boys' kite-flying contests are the emotional core of the film, and Forster and his crew bring the camera into the sky and make it dip and soar along with the kites.

The movie's heart is certainly in the right place -- it's a quietly outraged work -- but I wish there were more excitement in it from moment to moment.

How long has it been since you saw a movie that succeeds as pure story? That doesn't depend on stars, effects or genres, but simply fascinates you with how it will turn out?

The Kite Runner feels authentic in its ethnic tensions, even when the narrative itself, with its handily reappearing and easily avenged villain, undermines that authenticity.

The powerful themes of loyalty, shame, and redemption tend to be muted by the same glass-table treatment Forster brought to Finding Neverland.

A heartfelt saga of cruelty redeemed by belated love.

A respectful adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's 2003 novel.

If The Kite Runner flies only to flutter and fall a bit, at least it flies for a while.

[It] boasts one of the best performances by a child actor, ever.

Nuanced perfs and standout production design convey story in cinematic terms, preserving the narrative's emotional power and historical sweep as it spans continents and decades.

This is more an entertaining than a profound film.

Visually arresting, politically controversial, perhaps its greatest virtue is its simple message of making wrong right.

The Kite Runner has become that most unfortunate of awards-season Hollywood casualties: a worthy bore.

The Kite Runner is dramatically and visually sumptuous

Sure, the movie doesn't have the heart of the book, but it does have a solid mechanical pump, strong enough at least to keep a robust story on two-hour life support.

Maudlin, implausible and dull.