So moving, so memorable, so magically produced, it's going to delight millions of movie fans and sweep the Oscars.

Darabont follows King's book fairly closely, allowing the audience to steep itself in the setting and characters slowly, like reading a good novel.

There's almost too much there, but the three-hour-plus film permits the kind of detailing that not only brings the storytelling to life, but sometimes persuades us we're breathing to its rhythms.

An often pedestrian film, one that never inflates to the epic grandeur to which it aspires or transfers its own emotional trajectory off the screen and into the viewer.

Excessive, but I, like Mr. Jingles, can't resist the Christmas-season cheese.

A very engrossing movie, the kind that gives shameless manipulation a good name.

A film with a counterproductive tendency to take its time...but unassumingly strong, moving performances and Darabont's durable storytelling make it a trip worth taking just the same.

Surely a life sentence goes by quicker.

Its view of spiritual healing is closer to Spielberg fantasy than religious insight. Still, its good acting and good intentions will be enough to please many viewers.

Simply a case of severe overreaching and the illusion that an overstuffed movie is an epic movie.