70
New York Magazine (Vulture) by
The new version of Lolita, released at last, turns out to be a beautifully made, melancholy, and rather touching account of a doomed love affair between a full-grown man and a very young woman.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
For all of their vaunted (and, it turns out, false) fidelity to Nabokov, Lyne and Schiff have made a pretty, gauzy Lolita that replaces the book's cruelty and comedy with manufactured lyricism and mopey romanticism.
75
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Vladimir Nabokov's novel helped open society's eyes to the evils of pedophilia in the 1950s, and this pensive adaptation renews the warning for a later generation.
75
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
In many ways, the concept underlying Lolita is more provocative than the actual material, which tends to be a bit long-winded. This is more the fault of the book than of Lyne's approach.
50
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Though Adrian Lyne's clodhopper direction, underlined by a mushy Ennio Morricone score, predictably runs the gamut from soft-core porn in the manner of David Hamilton to hectoring close-ups, this is perhaps Lyne's best movie after Jacob's Ladder--a genuinely disturbing (if far from literary) adaptation of Nabokov's extraordinary novel, written by former journalist Stephen Schiff and starring, predictably, Jeremy Irons.
20
Lyne doesn't seem to get the novel, failing to incorporate any of Nabokov's black comedy -- which is to say, Lolita's heart and soul.
50
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
Except for a memorably haunted performance by Jeremy Irons as the conflicted Humbert Humbert, what the new version lacks most of all is inspiration.
50
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
However, Lyne (whose sexually exploitative works include such popular box-office fare as "Flashdance," "9 1/2 Weeks," "Fatal Attraction," and "Indecent Proposal") has turned in a Lolita that is remarkably tame and tasteful. This is a Lolita for the English Lit crowd rather than the raincoat crowd.
40
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
There's precious few yucks, for one thing, but you can't say you're surprised that the astonishingly humorless Lyne hadn't noticed or cared that the Nabokov original is a droll comedy of errors first and a self-pitying romantic tragedy second.