Most critics come down in favour, and the praise clusters in the same places. The staging of Shanghai under occupation is widely admired, as is the film’s way of telling its story through what a boy sees rather than what he is told. Christian Bale’s performance as Jim is singled out in review after review, often as the thing that holds the film together. Several critics read it as the point where Spielberg turns towards darker material.
The reservations gather around feeling. A recurring complaint is that the supporting characters are thin and the camp scenes softened, leaving the film handsome but distant; Radio Times and Time Out both find it tamer than Ballard’s novel, and Roger Ebert thinks it turns horror into nostalgia. The two negatives, in The New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times, date from the original release and accuse it of manipulation and coldness. The spread is wide, and the later reviews are warmer than the first.