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Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Mike-689 Not sure what I was expecting when I started to watch this coming-of-age drama, but it certainly wasn't what I got. It doesn't quite know what it wants to be, beginning as it does as a comedy, developing into a Stand By Me-type rite-of-passage drama and culminating in tragedy, having embraced comic-book animation along the way. It tries too hard to be too many things, which is a shame because there is a lot of good stuff here. It will remain one of the more curious choices for Jodie Foster, cast as a hard-line nun, but perhaps this is explained by the fact that she also co-produced. Well acted by all the young cast though and worth a look.

srstolz Great acting, solid direction and some inventive presentation-- the protagonists re-imagine their lives in terms of comic-book fantasies, and we are treated to some wonderful traditional animation thereof-- are just the start in this complex picture.The film follows a group of '60s Catholic schoolboys who hatch a plan to play a crazy prank on one of their hated teachers. The plan, of course, goes awry. What is interesting in this film-- besides watching Culkin, Hirsch and Foster working their usual magic-- is the complexity of theme going on behind the adolescent antics. The film looks at the purpose of fantasy, the meaning of faith, the dangers of testing boundaries, the unpleasantness of unfinished business, the nature of God and the question of how one interprets His authority. The question of original sin-- never clumsily and straightforwardly stated-- permeates the film, from Margie's awful revelations to Tim's mischief. The film's real genius is its ability to play with obviously religious ideas without really doing any preaching.Behind all this, of course, is the Viet Nam war. As America loses its post-WWII innocence at the end of the 1960s, and as the flower-power generation realises that breaking the boundaries that authority sets ultimately breaks much more, so the boys learn what happens when people want to take God's power. When Tim Sullivan tells his teacher that William Blake's poetry is written "simply enough for a child," she responds with "so are the instructions for a handgun."

Lizettoe This movie is one of the best movies i have ever seen. The actors they chose for each character was perfect. Although Emile Hirsch is the main character in the movie, and his portrayal of Francis was great i think that Kieran Culkins portrayal of Tim was amazing. it was like if he was Tim in real life. i think that Kieran will soon become a well known actor. Hopefully he finds more roles like this. Also at the end of the film i realized it was a "bildungsroman" which is where the main character in like a movie or a book matures psychologically and spiritually by the end. In conclusion this film makes you think a lot about your life and is a film that everyone should watch.This film is TYTE!

Claudio Carvalho In the Seventies, the fifteen years old troublemaker and leader altar boy Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin) and his three great friends, Francis Doyle (Emile Hirsch), Wade Scalisi (Jake Richardson) and Joey Anderson (Tyler Long), study in a repressive Catholic school, and they hate their nun-teacher Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster). Francis has a crush on Margie Flynn (Jena Malone), who has a dramatic secret in her life. They like to write a comic book called 'The Atomic Trinity' and all of them have an alter-ego in their superheroes: Brakken (Francis), The Muscle/Skeleton Boy later (Tim), Captain Asskicker (Wade) and Major Screw (Joey), with Sorcerella (Margie) joining them later. Francis uses to fantasize reality with the fantastic situations the heroes face against the evil Nunzilla/Pegleg, a dark caricature of Sister Assumpta. The group plots an evil prank against Sister Assumpta, with tragic consequences."The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" is a surprisingly great original coming to age movie, one of the best I have ever seen in my life. The group of friends recalled me 1986 "Stand by Me" or part of 1981 "Four Friends" and the dramatic situation recalled somehow 1999 "The Virgin Suicides". The screenplay, alternating animation with film, is great: the boys escape and fantasize reality through their alter egos. The performance of the young cast is also excellent. Jodie Foster, as the severe teacher, and Vincent D'Onofrio, as Father Casey, magnificently complete this wonderful cast. I could never imagine Jodie Foster in such role. I highly recommend this great movie, much unknown here in Brazil. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): "Meninos de Deus" ("Boys of God")