Critics reviews

To dismiss The Brothers Bloom as a piece of “Andersonian preciousness” sells short Johnson’s attempts to converge realism and the fantastical in a single narrative. "The Brothers Bloom" does not simply glory in its own artifice; instead, the film takes on the bigger challenge of navigating fact, fantasy, and the disassociation that comes with falling in love with your own act of fiction.

Emotionally, "The Brothers Bloom" hasn't a trace of detachment or cynicism. Even if you don't quite comprehend the ending (there seem to be 12 of them), you'll still feel the wallop of its consequences.

It’s barmy and at times brilliant, but while Johnson wears the influences of postmodern fairy tales like "Paper Moon" and "The Last Picture Show" with pride, he ultimately fails to recapture their juxtapositional charms.

Try as I might, I just couldn't make friends with this strange, laboured film the way I did with [Johnson's] "Brick." Again and again, it is more quirky than funny, and more baffling than either... It is never funny exactly, or exciting precisely, or really anything in particular.

[Johnson] does keep things ticking along with distinctive editing rhythms and excellent design... It’s just a pity the film’s energy level drops so low in the second half – Johnson’s trying for a melancholic depth that’s half-successful, but risks stalling all his other ideas.

Perhaps you can be too cool for school and too clever for a multiplex, but if you're willing to go along with this, you'll enjoy being fooled so much that you won't mind it's all a trick.

"The Brothers Bloom" never achieves the satisfaction of a real crackerjack con movie, that visceral thrill that comes when all the snaggletoothed parts click into place, and too often Johnson’s instincts tip toward excess. But if you’ve ever known that peculiar pain of certainty that you were born in the wrong era, then the mood he’s conveyed here... is a balm. Johnson has made an imperfect film, but I perfectly adore his sensibility.

Johnson has a fertile imagination, a way with sly comedy and a yearning for the fantastical... This movie is lively at times, it's lovely to look at, and the actors are persuasive in very difficult material. But around and around it goes, and where it stops, nobody by that point much cares.

I enjoyed watching almost all of "The Brothers Bloom" without ever feeling compelled by it. Johnson is a prodigal, daring filmmaking talent, but this one's got a case of spotted-second-movie disease

The leads aren’t only miscast -- Brody over-mopes and the usually wonderful Ruffalo seems out of sorts as a rascally schemer -- but interest in the con plot fades as the director’s bag of tricks empties further... Weisz’s performance is the best thing in the movie... When she chirps “Let’s be smugglers!” in a burst of devilish glee, you feel her thirst for adventure more easily than Johnson’s overwrought blueprint for fun can muster.

Rian Johnson, who showed a deft touch for pastiche in Brick, here seems suffocated by Andersonian preciousness. Like [Wes] Anderson, Johnson has a fine eye for color, great taste in music, and a knack for painterly compositions, but the world he creates is airless and ultimately empty.

A globe-hopping tale of two too-cute con men, "The Brothers Bloom" is a stridently whimsical pileup of fraud, treasure, love and regret. Any hints of actual emotion, however, are squelched by hammy performances and show-offy references.