The film is hamstrung by the novel's structure, unsure whether to be a 12A-certificate family outing, or to luxuriate in morbid irony.

Full Review | Jan 2, 2018

I'd heard reports that this film could reduce grown men to tears - but I'm guessing they were just yawning with boredom.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 4, 2014

Tries to blend heartwarming moral observation with ill-fitting metaphysical contrivance.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 2, 2014

The film-making style seems disconcertingly glossy given the downbeat themes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 28, 2014

The Book Thief must be accounted a failure: even Downton fans will find the rampant cosiness just a little hard to bear.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 28, 2014

It's certainly pretty to look at, reminiscent of those Disneyland parades where horses are much in evidence, but their excrement (thanks to neat little sacks attached to the creatures' nether regions) never soils the ground.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 28, 2014

It's a worryingly lenient and obtuse approach to history and historical evil, which are smothered in feelgood tragi-sentimental slush.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 28, 2014

What is The Book Thief saying? Unknown. I can't even tell you what its intentions are, or whom it is intended for, only that it lacks even a whiff of emotional heft.

Full Review | Feb 27, 2014

Since the story is essentially Anne Frank re-gendered, why bother at all?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 27, 2014

[Percival] certainly makes everything look pretty, although neither he nor Michael Petroni, who wrote the script, seem able to give the story a sense of momentum or tension, or even locate it in a world that's recognisably real.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 27, 2014

A frank and adventurous portrayal of love in the margins.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 27, 2014

Some good performances, impeccable craft and good intentions can't compensate for a lack of dramatic urgency and emotional heft. The Book Thief is effective, but not effective enough.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 24, 2014

The movie lacks the nerve to treat death as anything more menacing than the tooth fairy.

Full Review | Dec 10, 2013

Zusak's film, as scripted by Michael Petroni, chucks out the novel's crisp, occasionally sublime storytelling in favor of huge swaths of maudlin melodrama and countless cloying wartime cliches.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Nov 27, 2013

Markus Zusak's enormously successful young-adult novel seems to have been adapted as a movie for middle-aged children.

Full Review | Nov 25, 2013

"The Book Thief" may not be perfect, but it may steal your heart.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Nov 22, 2013

Pretty visuals give an unexpectedly painful twist to other parts of the story.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Nov 21, 2013

You just wonder if this film's audience might be happier at home, curled up with a book. "The Book Thief," perhaps.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 21, 2013

A tale of WWII Germany as seen through the eyes of a young girl, "The Book Thief" is unobjectionable, sentimental, and not a little dull.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 21, 2013

Screenwriter Michael Petroni has done a first-rate job of adapting Zusak's book. Director Brian Percival's pace is sometimes leisurely, but the small moments are important, and the ending is quietly memorable.

Full Review | Nov 21, 2013