Superb!

Rating: 9/10 (10 March 2012)

A poignant and sad film that clearly demonstrate that Gregg Toland and Orson Welles were well matched in their ability to give dimension to a movie. I don't think I have ever seen a better depiction of massive size and scale of a room and how it could feel so claustrophobic at the same time. The lighting and photography deserve all the accolades they have been given over the decades, the makeup is fantastic and the acting is on par with the quality of the movie as a whole. Yes, some scenes are less than stellar (the pterodactyls in the swamp picnic for example), but this only emphasizes how good the remainder is (such as the scene where Mrs. Kane is signing away young Charles Foster Kane to the banker).
The complexity of the time shifting plot is also impressive and well orchestrated to make it seem logical and seamless. I particularly like the way time was shown to progress through shots of each of his wives going about such mundane, daily tasks as eating breakfast and putting a jigsaw puzzle together - it described their lives as rather ordinary in an artistically subtle way that strengthened the effect for me.