Metacritic reviews

Writer/director Jeremy Leven takes pleasure in clouding the division between what's real and what isn't, but he never stretches matters to such an extreme that Don Juan DeMarco is reduced to a mindless farce.

The picture... is simple, sweet and elegantly written, and it benefits from the presence of Marlon Brando.

It benefits not only from Mr. Brando's peculiar presence, but also from Johnny Depp, who again proves himself a brilliantly intuitive young actor with strong ties to the Brando legacy. The movie is cheesy, but its stars certainly are not.

The movie, written and directed by Jeremy Leven, may not be one for the ages, but it's a pleasant, involving experience that intermixes fairy-tale romance with modern, deadpan comedy.

[Leven] keeps the film's tone light and ingratiating. And, though the material is thin, the actors do seem to be getting a kick out of playing off each other.

This first feature by novelist and psychologist Jeremy Leven has a fairly rudimentary mise en scene, but the actors take over the proceedings with aplomb, and Brando and Dunaway have the grace to turn much of the show over to Depp, who carries the burden with ease.

Although flawed in many respects -- it's not as smooth and silky a movie as it could have been -- Don Juan DeMarco nevertheless evokes a romantic mood that tickles and caresses.

Brando doesn't so much walk through this movie as coast, in a gassy, self-indulgent performance no one else could have gotten away with.

Depp is rather sweet in portraying Don Juan's self-delusions, but his performance is hampered by the role.

Most of the movie seems stilted and uncomfortably girdled by efforts to work around the cumbersome Brando, who is shot mostly from above the waist, where the full effects of gravity and avoirdupois do not seem so egregious as they do at belt level.