Amelia leaves you wondering how its abundantly gifted director, Mira Nair, and its Oscar-winning star, Hilary Swank, could have been complicit in such clumsiness.
Comment
10/22/09
Amelia (2009)
20
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:137
Fresh:28
Rotten:109
Average Rating:4.4/10
Consensus: Amelia takes the compelling raw materials of its subject’s life and does little with them, conventionally ticking off Earhart's accomplishments without exploring the soul of the woman.
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $13,766,323
Synopsis: Visionary. Lover. Dreamer. Fighter. Legend. Icon. AMELIA. An extraordinary life of adventure, celebrity and continuing mystery comes to light in AMELIA, a vast, thrilling account of legendary... [More]
Starring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston
Director: Mira Nair
Reviews for Amelia
101 - 120 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Top CriticA by-the-book bio-pic.
10/22/09
Amelia is a perfectly sound biopic, well directed and acted, about an admirable woman.
10/22/09
Top CriticWith any luck this biopic of Amelia Earhart will also vanish without a trace.
10/22/09
If there's one thing Amelia wants us to know, it's that Amelia Earhart was her own woman. If there's another thing...I don't have a clue what it could be.
10/22/09
[A] gauzy biopic [with] gorgeous scenery, beautiful period costumes, and a love affair worthy of a Lifetime movie.
10/22/09
History can weigh heavily on a filmmaker, and that is what happens with Amelia, a disappointing rendering of the remarkable life of Amelia Earhart.
10/22/09
Top CriticA director can do only so much with a script...that feels like it's on the runway, waiting, even when it's up in the air.
10/22/09
Hilary Swank certainly looks the part and...fits the period well, ...but although her Amelia talks about her love of flight, Nair fails to really make us feel it.
10/22/09
Amelia Earhart is known for being an aviation pioneer and, ultimately, a mystery, but the new biopic with Hilary Swank as the groundbreaking pilot has added a surprising new word to the mix: boring.
10/22/09
Swank's resemblance to Earhart is uncanny, but the result is verisimilitude without engagement %u2014 a risk-taker's story told entirely without narrative risk, and a movie that consequently never takes flight.
10/22/09
Who was Amelia Earhart, really? It's a good question. Unfortunately, it's one beyond Amelia.
10/22/09
Amelia attempts the yeoman's task of recounting a tale about which it has virtually nothing to say.
10/22/09
Swank makes it look easier than it probably should be. She's equally charming and vulnerable, which were evidently a couple of the traits of the real-life Earhart. And that's a good thing, because the film often sputters, sways and wobbles...
10/22/09
Overly glorifies its human subject, cautious to get its hands dirty and dig beneath the surface of Earhart's public life. And yet, even so, Hilary Swank is a joy to watch.
10/22/09
By no means the perfect biopic, but one that covers a lot of ground in telling Amelia Earhart's story. The amount of research that went into (it) is fairly impressive.
10/22/09
Glossy, stodgy and unfailingly conventional, Amelia sets out to inspire an audience but never feels inspired itself.
10/22/09
Though this traditional story about a defiantly nontraditional woman doesn't always soar, it fits Hilary Swank, its producer/star, like a jumpsuit. She and Nair thrill to the life of this American who broke records, hearts, and boundaries.
10/22/09
[Swank is] so constrained by mannerisms that she never gets beyond the character’s surface -- although to be fair, trying to import feeling into the movie’s stilted dialogue is like trying to fly a plane blindfolded.
10/22/09
Gere and McGregor are fine actors, but Nair uses them like the expendable males (Zachary Scott, Franchot Tone, et al) who stood back and let Bette Davis and Joan Crawford do all the heavy lifting back in the day.
10/22/09
Latest News for Amelia
October 22, 2009:
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October 22, 2009:
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When Hilary Swank takes to the sky in "Amelia" this weekend, she'll be adding to Hollywood's long -- and, yes, rather bumpy -- fascination with flight. More...
October 08, 2009:
New: Brand New Trailer and Poster Here.
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June 28, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review
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