Page "Magnolia (film)" Paragraph 64

While Magnolia struggled at the box office, it was well-received critically.

As of 2011 it has an 83 % rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 114 " fresh " reviews out of 138 ; among the website's " Top Critics ", 25 " fresh " reviews out of 32 results in a 78 % rating.

USA Today gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and called it " the most imperfect of the year's best movies ".

In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert praised the film, saying: " Magnolia is the kind of film I instinctively respond to.

Leave logic at the door.

Do not expect subdued taste and restraint, but instead a kind of operatic ecstasy ".

Entertainment Weekly gave the film a " B +" rating, praising Cruise's performance: " It's with Cruise as Frank T. J. Mackey, a slick televangelist of penis power, that the filmmaker scores his biggest success, as the actor exorcises the uptight fastidiousness of Eyes Wide Shut ... Like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, this cautiously packaged movie star is liberated by risky business ".

The Independent said that the film was " limitless.

And yet some things do feel incomplete, brushed-upon, tangential.

Magnolia does not have the last word on anything.

But is superb ".

Kenneth Turan, in his review for the Los Angeles Times, praised Tom Cruise's performance: " Mackey gives Cruise the chance to cut loose by doing amusing riffs on his charismatic superstar image.

It's great fun, expertly written and performed, and all the more enjoyable because the self-parody element is unexpected ".

In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, " In the case of Magnolia, I think Mr. Anderson has taken us to the water's edge without plunging in.

I admire his ambition and his very eloquent camera movements, but if I may garble something Lenin once said one last time, ' You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs '.