Critic Reviews
39
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
positive
0(0%)
mixed
9(82%)
negative
2(18%)
Showing 11 Critic Reviews
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Metascore
Metascore
50
Imagine watching Otto Preminger's equally silly 1960 "Exodus" now and you'll have O Jerusalem, minus Paul Newman's blue-eyed wink.
50
Formulaic film recounts the tumultuous birth of Israel.
50
Features some first-rate cinematography and solid acting, but absolutely no sense of emotional boundaries.
50
What is evident from the film is that there was never any chance these two peoples could make a peaceful coexistence.
50
Alas, it aspires to be an epic drama but suffers from an acute identity crisis: It can't decide if it wants to be history, drama, or a cry for peace in the Mideast.
50
As overstated and expository as a historical pageant, from the drippy music to a sputtering, running gag involving funky old jalopies to cliched speeches and teary-eyed deaths and a final voice-over crying out for peace. Why not add a song score and an exclamation mark in the title?
40
Whether on a Middle Eastern battlefield or the streets of New York, characters converse in stilted, expository mouthfuls that smother emotion.
40
O Jerusalem has the virtue of energy, but it suffers from superficiality, particularly with regard to the characterizations.
40
Makes the mistake of including too sweeping a scope in too small a movie and with too few resources.
38
As a pocket history of the battles over Jerusalem in the ’40s, O Jerusalem is serviceable enough. But all the melodrama cheapens the real drama, and turns a war-torn region into a soap-opera stage.
