It's sweet stuff, a portrait of an artist in turmoil, under fire and laying himself bare. Howl captures Howl beautifully. full review

Admirable if fundamentally academic. full review

Documentary filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman attracted Hollywood talent, far and wide, for this film, had an epic poem and a classic culture clash as their subject and still produced a corpse from it. full review

What could have been a trivial exercise in nostalgia instead becomes a powerful case for the cathartic power of art. full review

It's about literature itself, the ways in which it works on the reader and the folly of applying some objective standard of decency and meaning to words on a page. full review

The film forces us to face what a powerful poem "Howl" remains. That poetry isn't just pretty language, it has the ability to make us think about our lives, even to change our lives. full review

Despite James Franco's smart performance as poet Allen Ginsberg, this film rings hollow. full review

The result, though clearly flawed, is passionate and ambitious, celebrating that long-gone era when a book of verse could spark a revolution in consciousness. full review

The best thing about the film Howl is the poem Howl. full review

How do you make poetry cinematic? "Howl,'' a new film about beat writer Allen Ginsberg, asks that question without realizing the question is backward. It should be: How do you make cinema poetic? full review

It's well-crafted, but I wish the film showed us an additional dimension or two of the central figure, who once said the great challenge in writing, any kind of writing, is "to write the same way you are." full review

The bold, outspoken man of later days is seen here as still a middle-class youth, uncertain of his gayness, filled with the heady joy of early poetic success, learning how to be himself. full review

By the time this movie's over, you've spent an hour and a half just working your way through the words of "Howl" and some related source material, and that turns out to be a surprisingly satisfying thing to do. full review

An exemplary work of literary criticism on film, explaining and contextualizing its source without deadening it. full review

Howl is a movie with no clear narrative. It pushes boundaries and feels like one man's fever dream. But all those traits would certainly make Allen Ginsberg happy. full review

A film of passion and ambition, but one whose success is intermittent at best. full review

Allen Ginsberg's revolutionary 1956 poem ''Howl'' -- a literary manifesto for the Beat Generation -- gets a great reading from modern-day beatnik-star James Franco, playing the poet with bebop passion. full review

There is no defining story of lasting importance here, so the directors opted for a small narrative, a lot of drawings and snippets of the trial. It's filled with graphics, but doesn't really amount to much of a film or an illumination of the man's life. full review

Splendid as Franco's literal characterization and overheated line readings can be, art director Eric Drooker's literal-minded animated interpretation of "Howl" are as sodden as a cold latke -- as well as a distraction. full review

Howl is very, very, good. Worth seeing if you love writing, if you've ever written, if you're intrigued by the creative process as a whole. full review