Metacritic reviews

Thanks to Rushdie's sensitive handling of his own material, this is an adaptation big in both ideas and heart.

Preserves much of the novel's intricacy and human drama, perhaps due to Salman Rushdie's involvement as co-screenwriter, even if it remains singularly unremarkable from a cinematic perspective.

The movie's pace flags a good deal once Bangladesh has been born in 1971, and the adult characters are much less interesting than their child counterparts, but there's enough here to entertain – and to send audiences back to the book.

Even if you've read the novel, and are prepared for the long running time and haphazard structure, this isn't a movie you should expect to feel or even closely follow. See it if Midnight's Children is a novel you always wanted the gist of.

To be sure, there are many reasons to see the film. The cinematography is memorably vibrant, and the performances are solid, even if they pass by too swiftly. Most of all, of course, the subject matter remains fascinating.

The film needs an injection of Bollywood’s unembarrassed, anything-goes, bigger-than-life spirit, which embraces willy-nilly — as does Mr. Rushdie’s novel — the vulgar, the fanciful and the frankly unbelievable.

At times Midnight's Children balances off its earnestness with a sweeping view of history and tangible human drama, but the allegorical qualities of Rushdie's novel fail to translate as anything but a shrill, on-the-nose instance of thematic overreaching.

It’s a vibrant journey, but not a terribly illuminating one.

Despite the solid work of cast and crew, the film dawdles and fails to justify its two-and-a-half-hour running time. Midnight reaches its tender conclusion without ever achieving the emotional or dramatic heft that such an epic tale requires.

A miniseries, which the BBC once planned, might have worked. In this form, Midnight’s Children has the paradoxical misfortune of being both too rushed and too wearingly long.