Youth Without Youth is pretentious as hell but so goofily in love with the idea of itself that you feel protective toward it, the way you would toward a platypus that has lost its way.

Coppola may be back, but he's a long way from being back on form.

Youth Without Youth is so beautiful, in fact, that it almost transcends the epic bunkum of Coppola's script. But almost doesn't count, even when it is uttered in ancient tongues.

Coppola produced an equally sumptuous and far more approachable masterpiece centered on time and interior consciousness.