with a cast that's stacked to the rafters with talent, and a story so twisty that you'll be surprised by the clues lying right in front of your eyes, it's easy to see why this movie has been saved as a theatrical experience
this wholly bears Guillermo del Toro's imprint and penchant for stylistic flourishes, symbolism, and melancholic romance. It's not the filmmaker's strongest effort, yet it's still a soaring spectacle that casts a spell
Guillermo del Toro tells a familiar tale in lavish noir remake; his latest is a gorgeous Nightmare, albeit one that's ultimately less satisfying as a story — half traveling carnival, half faithful tribute to film noir — than as a heady exercise in st
dreary and overly saturated with a CGI patina, "Nightmare Alley" adds more gore and f-bombs to the source material but ultimately remains emotionally inert and unclear exactly what it wants to say about these characters and the world they inhabit
delivers a glossy tragedy about the dangers of ambition; for all its flaws, there's still something ultimately entrancing about Nightmare Alley - the feeling of watching an artist grappling with his own self-groomed status as a king of the supernatural
Cate Blanchett is outstandingly icy and just as mischievous; Bradley Cooper has a line in this movie so hauntingly and twistedly delivered in pitch-black gallows humor context; it transcends the performance from great to extraordinary
a luminous noir vision; Cooper's performance is riveting, holding the center of a superb cast; "Nightmare Alley" pays tribute to noir. But it's also its own dark snow globe, luminous and finely faceted, and one of del Toro's most fluent features
a gorgeous, fantastically sinister moral fable about the cruel predictability of human nature and the way entire systems are engineered to exploit it; it's a glorious homage to an American experience all but lost to time
"Nightmare Alley" is a beautiful-looking noir film about many people with very ugly personalities; unfortunately, the movie's sluggish pacing, hollow characters, and corny dialogue drag down this film into being a self-indulgent bore