I may be the solitary voice of disapproval.

Rating: 6/10 (31 March 2009)

The film is a victim of all the hype attached to it. For whatever reason enough people saw something special in it and a ground swell of enthusiasm propelled this film into hysterical popularity. Unfortunately there isn't enough substance to warrant the praise.
Gratuitous choppy editing, endless nausea-inducing skewed camera angles (the thing I hated most about the whole mess) and a rather too contrived plot are combined to produce only mildly entertaining results.
The performances by the young actors were uniformly stellar and that is where the praise should be directed.
Finally, where there's smoke - there's fire. For all Boyle's glib explanations of how well the kids were taken care of and how well paid they were the truth is they received far, far less than they should have based on their contribution. I'm surprised the movie-going public let the filmmakers get away with this.
It's great that their education is supposedly assured but considering the extraordinary success of the film and the wealth generated for the fat-cats in Hollywood and London these kids' lives NOW could have and should have been transformed. How on earth could they have been allowed to return to the slums most of them came from? It's real a shame.
Social issues aside, I was left unimpressed and numb at the end of the movie.