Rating: 
Summary: BRILLIANT!
Review: Perhaps one of the most thought-provoking films of all time. This movie should be considered alongside Ben Hur and Gandhi as a true classic. Forget shlock like Titanic - this is the movie that evokes more emotion. Connery is at his absolute best as William of Baskerville and a (very) young Christian Slater is outstanding as his pupil Adso.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best dipictions of medivel life
Review: Sean Connery is wonderful as a man of science in a world filled with closed minds. The setting and costumes are so well done you feel you are at the abbey. Ron Pearlman once again shows that he is a great character actor. A "who dunnit?" for the ages.
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking! Hilighting religion's & science's feud
Review: Set in the mountains of 13th century abbey in Italy, the Name of the Rose weaves a complicated tale of faith, science and murder in a way that will keep audiences guessing. Sean Connery's portrayal of a learned monk (William of Baskerville) who uses the tools of science and logic to solve a series of murders, which are cleverly set to mimic the biblical book of Revelation, is one of his best. And audience members will find themselves thinking about the issues this picture brings to light, long after the movie is over. One of my all time top five!
Rating:
Summary: Unique
Review: What I appreciate so much about The Name of the Rose is its uniqueness. How many other medieval-themed movies about the pedestrian (not the stuff of legends) are there? How many mystery stories set more than a couple centuries ago are there? It's a movie without equal... not because it's all that excellent a movie, but, rather, because nothing compares in subject matter and style (and it's still a good movie, to boot).It takes guts to make a movie that takes place 100% at a monastery in the 14th century. There is also no romanticizing of the life of monks or the operation of the monastery. The grimy, cold, lifeless world is a realistic portrayal of many of the (especially northern and remote) monasteries of the day. Despite the bleakness and corruption, however, I'm fascinated with how institutions like this are almost solely responsible for the preservation and duplication (represented in the film) of many of the old texts and manuscripts that we have today. That's not any focus of the film, but just an observation that makes the setting feel more alive and fascinating for this history buff. It's really unfortunate that the critics registered such terrible reviews. I can only imagine that they viewed it as riding the coattails of Amadeus' success, with buckets of blood thrown in to make things more interesting. Taken alone, I think that it stands on its own as an awfully good mystery movie set in a period and setting largely unfamiliar to cinema.
Rating:
Summary: A Winner in Every Way
Review: I have seen this fine film 5 or 6 times and each time I see something new and fascinating in it. Umberto Eco's novel was a complex story to adapt to a major film, and this was done with skill and intelligence by Andrew Birkin, Gérard Brach, Howard Franklin & Alain Godard. The idea of such a tragic murder solved with only the tools of the time is nothing short of brilliant. I am wondering how much the BBC television series "Cadfael" with Derek Jacobi is based on this motion picture. Both are superb in their own way. If you enjoy a film with mystery, brilliant performances, gothic photography and magnificent art direction, you will enjoy this masterpiece. Be warned, however... you will require an attention span. This is not a film kids will understand.
Rating:
Summary: Everything's Coming Up...
Review: gripping story that took me in a different place... clear transfer and vivid color.. nice 5.1 sound.. sean connery in his typical acting style.. and a young christian slater showed promise.. delicate scenes intact...
great film... and great packaging btw.
Rating: 
Summary: A travesty
Review: Umberto Eco's complex, multi-layered masterpiece is butchered beyond recognition in what may be the single worst film adaptation of a major novel in cinematic history, although it may be enjoyable to Sean Connery fans who haven't read the book. Anyone who enjoyed the novel, on the other hand, will most likely be enraged by this film, and should avoid it like the Bubonic Plague.
Rating: 
Summary: for the most part, an abomination
Review: An utterly horrendous adaptation of one of my all-time favorite novels. It completely misses the point by focusing exclusively on the murder mystery (and it doesn't even do that well), when in fact that was simply Eco's device for framing a post-modern reflection on the downfall of the seemingly impregnible edifice ("aedificium") of human reason. The film makes the monks seem like dull-witted cretins, when in the novel (and as a matter of historical fact) they were the scholars and intelligentia of the time. The protagonist, William of Baskerville (played by Sean Connery), is portrayed as an infallible sleuth who gets everything right, whereas the novel emphasizes that William, despite his razor sharp acumen, each time only stumbles upon the right answers by accident, i.e., irrationally. The single sex scene is done to excess, and the bitter end of Adso's romance is completely altered, undoing the sense of tragedy at the hands of a fanatical devotion to "truth". The importance of "the forbidden book" is never adequately conveyed, leaving the viewer with no sense of why people were murdered for it in the first place. I can go on and on, but my frustration at this movie should be clear enough. 1 star because I have to, a second for the scenery, which was quite good and captured my own sense of what the monastery and its environs would have looked like.
Rating:
Summary: Unholy Orders and Dirty Habits...
Review: Buy this film for Connery's performance alone. It's one of his best. The scene where he finally gains access to 'one of the greatest libraries in Christendom' is worth the price of the film by itself, and demonstrates why Connery is a genuinely great movie actor.
The sex scene is good. Erotic and sexually charged. It fits perfectly with the story and is one of the least gratuitous sex scenes I have ever witnessed.
Unfortunately, there is some atrocious acting from some of the supporting cast, some of whom ought to have known better. Best ignore these. Slator isn't one of those. He's really very good, and performs well with Connery. I wonder if those two ever intend to work together in something else? They probably need to hurry up if they do.
Some of the editing is phenomenally poor. Shockingly bad. Can't see why. And, personally, I'm not convinced about the oft-applauded authenticity of the Medieval setting. Bit too Monty Python's Holy Grail, if you ask me. Also, weirdly, given the sexual content already alluded to, the ending is a simperingly inoffensive cop-out. But then Connery saves it all once again with some magical acting where he's crying over the destruction of a shelf-load of books.
There's not many films where you can say that happens.
Music's really good, too.
Rating:
Summary: Warning
Review: This is perhaps the worst screen adaptation of any book that I have ever seen. It not only misses the points made in the book, it makes a mockery of every idea that the book encourages one to explore. A rich intellectual saga is turned into a trite, slow moving, "politically correct" exercise. None of the characters are developed beyond a shallow shadow of themselves.
If you have read the book, don't watch this movie! You run the risk of the kind of rage that could cause the demolition of your video equipment.
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