Critic Reviews
47
Metascore
Mixed or Average
positive
6(29%)
mixed
11(52%)
negative
4(19%)
Showing 21 Critic Reviews
80
Flawed, certainly, but by no means the horror-show its paltry box-office performance would suggest.
75
In its own way and up to a certain point, 1492 is a satisfactory film. Depardieu lends it gravity, the supporting performances are convincing, the locations are realistic, and we are inspired to reflect that it did indeed take a certain nerve to sail off into nowhere just because an orange was round.
70
The movie's pageantry and visual grandeur are its most impressive elements, along with Depardieu's command as Columbus. [09 Oct 1992, p.20]
63
He never gets the material under control. But what he has, in 1492, is dazzling. [09 Oct 1992, p.G5]
63
Scott and Bosch deserve credit for honoring the moral complexities and consequences of Columbus's conquests, but in trying to cram so much into a lavishly mainstream film, they've lost the impact of an adventure that is perhaps best relived in documentaries. [09 Oct 1992, p.3]
63
1492 is a pretty good movie, but it isn't as good as you might like. Part of the problem is Roselyne Bosch's script. The screenwriter (and co-producer) seems so determined to make a hero of Columbus that she can't resist giving him every virtue and virtuous motive available, and placing him in direct opposition to every bad guy or bad idea around, including decadent aristocrats, ignorant priests, and the Church and the Inquisition in general. [12 Oct 1992]
60
If 1492 is dramatically inert, it is just the opposite visually. Its director is Ridley Scott, a wizard at re-creating the look of other realities, and he's done a remarkable job here, filling the screen with ravishing sequences from both the Old World and the New that are dazzling and intoxicating.
50
1492 is not a terrible film. Yet because it is without any guiding point of view, it is a lot less interesting than the elaborate physical production that has been given it. Only a very great writer could do justice to all the themes the Columbus story suggests. Ms. Bosch may be a very good researcher, but she's not a very great writer. She can't even squeeze in many relevant facts, much less define the relevance of those she does include.
50
Both Scott and screenwriter Roselyne Bosch provide absorbing period detail. You learn about garrotings and massacres, Indian hairstyles and Spanish royal gowns. But this cinematic scrapbook of Columbian highlights is as beautiful as it is empty.
50
All Ridley Scott's vaunted visuals can't transform 1492 from a lumbering, one-dimensional historical fresco into the complex, ambiguous character study that it strives to be.
