38
It's sense of complexity is giving us masses of people moved by Simon Bolívar's words, and gorgeous sweeping vistas of the landscape backed by a stirring orchestra.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
Arizona Republic by Barbara VanDenburgh
How disappointing that a movie about challenging authority should be such a slave to convention.
40
Bolivar is eye-rollingly romanticized as a wonderful lover and an even better fighter in Alberto Arvelo's lushly produced, dully reverential The Liberator.
75
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
North American viewers will have one advantage over their South American brethren — the capacity to be surprised. We knew how “Lincoln” was going to end, but The Liberator is a question mark all the way to the finish.
50
The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo
It’s an equally fiery, magnetic star turn, but being trapped in a stolid, unimaginative, and simplistic example of the genre — a typical historical biopic, in other words — saps a surprising amount of its strength.
75
McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore
The Liberator may be a Cliff Notes version of South American history, but Ramirez breathes life into it and makes us care.
40
At best, The Liberator is a commendably old-fashioned affair that goes light on CGI backgrounds and heavy on dazzling scenery. At worst, it’s a reminder of all the extras-heavy would-be epics that got tossed on film history’s slag heap.