50
Whether these Hollywood touches will make the film appealing to the Rambo crowd is doubtful. By all means, read the book first. [24 Sept 1986]
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
83
Entertainment Weekly by Chris Nashawaty
The film’s packed with messages in invisible ink, secret staircases, and corpses in cauldrons of pig’s blood. And since ? Connery’s bald as a cue ball, that means no distracting Hanksian haircuts!
80
The Name of the Rose spins a whopping good tale, a medieval murder mystery that only those with seriously damaged attention spans will find hard to enjoy. [29 Sept 1986, p.63]
30
You want misery? he gives you misery—dark, drear, suppurating medieval oppressiveness; monotony? he gives you that too, lots and lots of monotony; subhuman grotesquerie and primitive superstition? not to worry: this guy didn't direct Quest for Fire for nothing.
40
Washington Post by Paul Attanasio
If the style of the film matches the story, that doesn't make it any easier to look at -- it's just too bleak, and in the end, you'd rather see "Ivanhoe." Annaud never finds the right rhythm for the movie, and it's sluggishly paced, even as palimpsests go.
40
Washington Post by Rita Kempley
It's a richly appointed production that's hard to take seriously since the monks all look vaguely like Marty Feldman.
63
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
What this movie needs is a clear, spare, logical screenplay. It's all inspiration and no discipline.
50
Los Angeles Times by Sheila Benson
Yes, it is splendid that anyone would take on so formidable a project as Eco’s 500-page chambered nautilus of a novel. Yes, this certainly feels like a 14th-Century Italian abbey, bleak, drafty and forbidding. Yes, it looks like it too--the 14th-Century as cast by Federico Fellini, every face a grotesque. But no, sad to say, it isn’t a perfectly marvelous film.
50
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
The movie is full of the kind of atmosphere that can be created by elaborate sets, dim lighting and misty landscapes, though it has no singular character or dominant mood.