'Slumdog Millionaire' hits the jackpot with film critics

Oscar hopeful "Slumdog Millionaire" opened in limited release today to rave reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes, a survey of 14 top critics yielded a perfect score of 100 while casting the net wider still produced a score of 92 based on 38 "fresh" reviews and 3 "rotten" ones. Over at Meta Critic, the 11 reviews cited add up to a score of 82.

What makes this film such a winner? Watch its director Danny Boyle and writer Simon Beaufoy dish those answers with Gold Derby on video — CLICK HERE!

To learn what film critics have to say, start with Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times who asks, "Who would believe that the best old-fashioned audience picture of the year, a Hollywood-style romantic melodrama that delivers major studio satisfactions in an ultra-modern way, was made on the streets of India with largely unknown stars by a British director who never makes the same movie twice?" As he explains, "To make this kind of story modern, Danny Boyle and his team, especially cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantel and editor Chris Dickens, have told it in the jazziest way possible, breaking things up into numerous then and now sections and making the dark elements (like the torture used in the initial police interview) much darker than would have been the case in Hollywood's prime. The Warner brothers would have blanched at that, but they would have loved this story, and in that they would have been far from alone."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times thought, "This is a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same time, about a Mumbai orphan who rises from rags to riches on the strength of his lively intelligence. The film's universal appeal will present the real India to millions of moviegoers for the first time." Ebert ends by noting, "When I saw 'Slumdog Millionaire' at Toronto, I was witnessing a phenomenon: dramatic proof that a movie is about how it tells itself. I walked out of the theater and flatly predicted it would win the Audience Award. Seven days later, it did. And that it could land a best picture Oscar nomination. We will see. It is one of those miraculous entertainments that achieves its immediate goals and keeps climbing toward a higher summit."

His crosstown rival, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, was slightly less impressed calling the film, "a ruthlessly effective paean to destiny, leaving nothing to chance." However, he too thought, "It also has a good shot at winning this year's Academy Award for best picture, if the pundits, Allah, Shiva and Fox Searchlight Pictures have anything to say about it. Each life-or-death cliffhanger and meticulous splash of color, every arrow plucked from director Danny Boyle's sari-wrapped quiver takes aim at the same objective: to leave you exhausted but wowed."

Leading the cheers of the Gotham critics was Lou Lumenick of the New York Post who writes, "Four stars simply aren't enough for Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire,' which just may be the most entertaining movie I've ever labeled a masterpiece in these pages. Great movies transport the audience, and this one left me floating on air after two viewings. I can't wait to see it again - and share it with others. It's actually one of those movies that are best approached with as little advance knowledge as possible. If you need more of a sell than that, let me just say it's a soaringly romantic, uproarious comedy-drama with Dickensian overtones - set mostly in a vividly rendered Mumbai, India." As Lou concludes, "With a gallery of unforgettable performances and indelible images of the subcontinent, this is surely one of the year's best movies - and the only live-action contender for the Best Picture Oscar released so far this year."

For Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News, "Boyle borrows heavily from Bollywood, and every dazzling frame seems ready to overflow -- with people, emotions and a riot of color. The romance is shamelessly soap-operatic, and the mood swings wildly from despair to joy. But when Boyle pulls back to show us his grand vision, it's a stunner. And everything suddenly falls into place, as if this uncommonly daring film was fated to work from the very start."

Only Manohla Dargis of the New York Times had reservations, noting "what gives me reluctant pause about this bright, cheery, hard-to-resist movie is that its joyfulness feels more like a filmmaker’s calculation than an honest cry from the heart about the human spirit (or, better yet, a moral tale). In the past Mr. Boyle has managed to wring giggles out of murder ('Shallow Grave') and addiction ('Trainspotting'), and invest even the apocalypse with a certain joie de vivre (the excellent zombie flick '28 Days Later'). He’s a blithely glib entertainer who can dazzle you with technique and, on occasion, blindside you with emotion, as he does in his underrated children’s movie, 'Millions.' He plucked my heartstrings in 'Slumdog Millionaire' with well-practiced dexterity, coaxing laughter and sobs out of each sweet, sour and false note."

From the national newspapers, Claudia Puig of USA Today thought, "The beautifully rendered and energetic tale celebrates resilience, the power of knowledge and the vitality of the human experience. Horrifying, humorous and life-affirming, it is, above all, unforgettable." And Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal writes, "There's never been anything like this densely detailed phantasmagoria -- groundbreaking in substance, damned near earth-shaking in style."