Rating: 
Summary: A big ol' mess (but sometimes worth it for that)
Review: I couldn't recommend anyone away from MAGNOLIA simply because it's worth seeing John C. Reilly's superb performance as a messed-up cop and William H. Macy's equally fine performance as a former child genius. There's other strong work from some other actors as well, but Anderson just isn't able to pull the whole thing off. It's too loose and disconnected: there are many things in it that might've seemed intelligent on paper or in discussion with his friends (the lipsynching of a song by several of the characters all at once, the inexplicable miracle at the film's close), but in practice they just lie there flat on the screen, seemingly unrelated to anything else. You keep awiting for a kind of magic to take over and animate the whole (as it does in Altman's NASHVILLE, Anderson's clear model, or even as it does in Anderson's previous movie, BOOGIE NIGHTS), but it just seems a mess at the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Who says it never rains in Southern California?
Review: In the opening scenes of 'Magnolia' PT Anderson goes a great length in setting up the premise that the implausible is certainly not impossible. However, an hour into the movie, the unusual opening scenes can be conveniently forgotten. The movie settles into a comfortable zone, relating stories of a group of individuals who are going through a certain crisis in their lives.There is the male-power guru who has the chance to watch his estranged father dying. There is the grown-up child genius that is searching for the meaning of his mundane life after the spotlight of television gameshow fades away. Meanwhile, another child genius is struggling with the same spotlight that he hardly desires. All these stories and more are told masterfully. Anderson will show you that he has what it takes to convey such vivid emotions across the screen. Throw in a fabulous soundtrack by Aimee Mann (although words have it that Anderson was inspired by Mann's songs and not the other way round), and there is the drama waiting to pluck the Oscars. Or so you thought. Anderson shifts into the high gear and the denounement will blow you away. Then you remember why he painstakingly set up the opening scenes. As an audience you don't really know what to make of it, to like it or to turn away in disgust. The truth is, 'Magnolia' is as much a drama as it is a showpiece. It exudes arrogance and for once you remember as an average moviegoer you are at the mercy of the director. He is the storyteller and like it or not, he has the power over you. PT Anderson has certainly mastered the art of film-making and he is not content with delivering your average drama. However, is he good enough to do what he does with this movie? That is for you to decide. Personally, I think he is.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: All I can say is that this movie really was trite and very boring. It was tring really hard to be something that it wasn't. It felt like someone was despertly tring to tell me, "look I can be creative." There wasn't anything ground breaking. Way overhyped.
Rating: 
Summary: When It Rains It Pours
Review: Magnolia is possibly the best film of the 90'es. Its so brillent in everyway its long but it holds you there just long enough intell you don't want to see anymore. The ending is one of the most unpredicable ending's in movie history. thats what movies are all about unpredicable,good acting,good story,good cinematography,and good direction and magnolia has it all.
Rating:
Summary: I Love this Movie
Review: "But it did happen" Magnolia is more clever then Short Cuts, more affecting then The Ice Storm, and more orignal then American Beauty. I love this movie, go see it.
Rating:
Summary: Cluttered and Pretentious
Review: P.T. Anderson's Magnolia is filled with so many great characters and fantastic bits of dialogue, it's almost tempting to overlook its flaws and hail it a masterpiece. That's the first time you see it. Anderson's pretention and melodrama become more and more cloying after repeated viewings. And that's a shame, because there are several inspired moments and a great Aimee Mann soundtrack in between the overwrought scenes. First of all, the movie is way too long and these characters way too good to be crammed into three hours. Most of these characters deserve their own movie, at least one less populated (i.e. Boogie Nights). Instead, Anderson decides to cram all of them into one gigantic mess. It's very hard to keep up with every single storyline; there's way too much information being thrown out at the audience at once. Anderson accomplished more artistically with the minimalist plot in "Hard Eight" than he does in this three-hour "magnum opus". Then there's the film's pretention. There are scenes, such as the spontaneous sing-a-long, that are supposed to be taken at face value. Unfortunately, they are played with such straight-faced gradeur that it forces the audience to laugh at them. It's so cloyingly cheesy that it becomes embarrassing to watch. As for the preposterous ending, don't ask. At first it seemed novel, but it becomes simply annoying the second time around. P.T. Anderson is an enormous talent, but he needs to minimalize what he has to say. By concentrating on less, as he did in Hard Eight and Boogie Nights, he gets to say more. Hopefully, he has finally gotten the "big message" out of his system so he can return to telling great stories once again.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible, but often misunderstood
Review: I think this is one of the best movies that has been made recently. Unfortunately, many people do not take the time to appreciate it or look for the meanings that it is trying to convey. I agree with some of the other reviewers that this movie is going to affect different people in different ways. Many people said that the characters in this movie, and their stories that are told, are boring or lead nowhere. First of all, I do not agree with these statements. The characters in this movie are incredible, as is the acting. They show the flaws that are in real people. I agree, Tom Cruise's character is offensive and crude in the beginning. What is incredible about his character, however, is what happens when his past is revealed during the interview. The breakdown of the confident front he presents makes him a real person and a character that can be related to. We just never understood where he was coming from before. This is an even more important part of the movie for me. I think the movie is not so much about the individual stories, but the fact that they cross paths and the way in which they do so. The movie plays with the expectations that we have in people. I think it makes the point that too often in life we judge people without understanding where they come from or what is going on in their lives. There are so many ironic moments that change our understanding of characters and create a new emotion for them. For example, when Philip Seymour Hoffman's character orders pornographic magazines we orignially take him to be a dirty person with sex on his mind. When the magazines arrive, however, we see that he is merely trying to help Earl Partridge find his son. This moment creates a new sympathy for his character. In addition, the cinematography of this movie is brilliant. There color and lighting throughout the movie add to the darkness and emptiness of the movie. Furthermore, there are many beautiful shots and the edits connecting the storylines are often incredible. The parallel montage of the film is difficult to pull off, but I think it is well done. Overall, I think this is a brilliant movie. I agree that it is not a movie you are going to enjoy if you're looking for a movie that is pure entertainment and that you won't have to think about. It's also a movie that you probably won't understand or appreciate completely the first time you watch it. If that's what you want, then don't watch Magnolia. If you want to appreciate film and all it has to offer, give this movie a chance, you won't be dissapointed.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Overwhelmingly sad and poignant portrayal of human brokenness, tragedy, and hurt. The random connections which keep cropping up between the nine main characters make this film all the more powerful, as if the universe were charging on without explanation or reason, throwing people onto the rocks as it did, randomly smashing their best attempts to live ordered lives. The way the movie reveals the secret griefs of the loveably square cop, as played by John Reilly, and the despicable stud, played by Tom Cruise, are particularly affecting. This movie reminds me to an uncomfortable degree of my own secret bruises. For all the times I've seen it, I've never been able to get through it without crying.
Rating:
Summary: the closest I've come to walking out of a theater
Review: I don't walk out on films as a matter of personal policy, but this film seriously tested that policy. Before the film I had no real opinion on Paul Anderson, now I'm convinced that he's just another Altman wannabe, so hell bent on being innovative and groundbreaking and developing his own "personal style" that he'll sacrifice a good story for it. Ensemble films a la Altman rarely work (as Altman himself will testify). I didn't know Magnolia was one of those before I saw it. As soon as I realized it, I realized we in the theater were in trouble. And sure we were. 3 hours of completely unsympathetic characters. It was like a long parade of victims, all of them somehow wronged by the world, by birth, by people, by drugs, by themselves. The redemption you'd expect at the end never came. That might be interesting to masochists, but some of us don't enjoy watching the miserable foibles of others. The suffering of the characters onscreen was an analogy to the suffering of the viewers in the theater, as was evidenced by the audible sighs of desperation from those around me as yet another scene chock full of disappointment began. If you enjoy seeing movies and being disappointed, if Radiohead's lyrics REALLY appeal to you, you'll like the film. If you're like the rest of us, who a) don't enjoy stories about human failure with no redemption and b) see through BS directors trying to become "auteurs", you can safely skip this film.
Rating:
Summary: Pretends to be epic & intellectual. It really, really isn't.
Review: Someone put it best when they said "that's 3 hours of my life I'm never going to get back". Definitely a different movie, but fails to keep and catch your attention. I'm usually into really strange/different movies, but this one did not do it for me. The acting was good, the end was pretty cool, but the "story" bored me - and three hours of boredom is not a good thing. The movie constantly jumps around between storylines of different characters. I usually don't mind this, but in this movie it seemed to happen too much and seem pointless at times. By the end of the movie, I didn't really feel that anything had really happened, which is a real disappointment after three hours. This movie was also very depressing. The end was the only redeeming quality. One, because it ended. Two, because the strange ending was the only part of the movie that evoked emotion out of me other than boredom. I laughed my arse off. If the ending had been the same, and the rest of the movie was condensed into a short story/skit of 20 minutes, I would have given it a 4/5, mostly for being so anti-Hollywood. Sorry, but I'm not going to pretend to like this movie just because Hollywood and its critics are desperately trying to convince me it's great. 1/10.
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