SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Mr-Fusion I tend to favor Lawrence Kasdan movies, but "Grand Canyon" is a vexing one. In this post-"Crash" world, it seems like I can't look at a high-caliber film about human relations without some inherent baggage. Thanks for that, Haggis."Grand Canyon" smacks of Oscar bait, which is disappointing. And to be honest, I came away disliking a few of these characters (surprising, when they're played by Steve Martin and Kevin Kline; they're unlikely unsympathetic actors). Feels like every time we take a break for the social lesson, someone goes into another speech. What separates this from the more manipulative fare is that there's sincerity in those speeches; like Kasdan's desperately trying to work out that's puzzling him. There's merit to that, but the meandering pace and clunky delivery spoil the lesson.5/10

SnoopyStyle Mack (Kevin Kline) lives a comfortable life in L.A. with his wife Claire (Mary McDonnell) and son Roberto (Jeremy Sisto). One night after a Lakers game with friend Davis (Steve Martin), his car breaks down in a bad neighborhood. He is threatened by young thugs when tow truck driver Simon (Danny Glover) comes to the rescue. Davis is a producer of violent films and he gets shot during a mugging. Claire discovers an abandoned baby. She is suffering from an empty nest and brings the baby home. Mack is drawn to his flirtatious secretary Dee (Mary-Louise Parker). Simon lives alone and has a deaf daughter. His sister Deborah (Tina Lifford) lives in a rough neighborhood and her son Otis is being pulled into a gang. Their house gets shot up. Mack sets up Simon with Jane (Alfre Woodard) from the office.This starts with a very memorable turn by Danny Glover. His little speech is a poetic plea for civility. The varied characters from varied backgrounds all have compelling lives. I am reminded of Oscar winning Crash (2004) except I like this one better. I feel drawn into each character's world. Unlike Crash, I don't feel manipulated. These characters have more reality and more humanity. Every one of them is trying to live within this interconnected world.

Michael Neumann Lawrence Kasdan updates the ensemble cast and multi-plot Yuppie distress of 'The Big Chill' to the 1990s, which only means his new film is twice as long as its predecessor. It begins with the worst nightmare of any white urban professional, when Kevin Kline's car breaks down in the wrong part of Los Angeles. He's rescued from drug dealers by tow truck driver Danny Glover (in the best scene of the film), and returns the favor by relocating Glover's family to a safer neighborhood, after which everyone goes to see the Arizona landmark of the film's title.Like so many other American movies these days, the whole thing can be summed in a single word: overkill. The simple message is delivered like a valentine at gunpoint, with the usual battery of portentous music cues and visual clichés, turning even a simple act like Kline reaching for a telephone into an event of earth-shattering significance. Worse yet, Kasdan's miracles look more like Yuppie wish-fulfillment fantasies (saving the colored folks; finding a beautiful, abandoned baby while out jogging), and the script is bogged down by too much 'heavy' dialogue, giving everyone a chance to express frustration with and/or amazement at the Human Condition.

flyingcandy If anyone thinks MAGNOLIA is the most pretentious movie ever made, as Richard Dreyfuss tells Robert Shaw in JAWS: "I got that beat." This movie, about rich and poor people in Los Angeles whose lives intertwine, all discussing their own philosophies of life, takes the pretentious nasal-gazing gold medal. Lawrence Kasdan, who's written and directed modern classics like SILVERADO and THE BIG CHILL (and wrote the script to THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK based on George Lucas's story), penned this do-gooder doozy with his wife, Meg. Kevin Kline's car breaks down in Inglewood (after a Laker game) and is almost killed by gangsters; Danny Glover, as a tow truck driver, saves him; they become friends and we follow each of their (and their friends and families) lives and basically learn: we're in different sized boats in the same raging sea. Hollywood bigwigs with tons of money obviously have a lotta guilt, and the Kasdans probably wrote this to assure their diamond-studded cronies: "No matter if we're millionaires, at least WE care". Or something. This film is God-Awful. Every sentence has a POINT; every camera angle an AGENDA. "I dare you to watch this and NOT LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR LIFE", is in parentheses throughout. As one character says: "People who excel at one thing think they know about everything." I think Lawrence and Meg might have been projecting here. And, at the very end of the two-and-a-half hours of ponderous diatribes (people carrying- on as if they've had that perfect amount of alcohol)... as the cast (including Steve Martin as a film producer who, after being shot in the leg, realizes his billion dollar bank account is pointless; Mary McDonnell, whose very countenance screams "I'm Better Than All Men", playing Kline's wife who finds an abandoned baby; and Jeremy Sisto as Kline's not-spoiled but very privileged son who works with the handicapped) all stare off into the actual Grand Canyon... realizing their problems are tiny in comparison... Don't be surprised if you hear yourself screaming "JUMP!" like I did.