Metacritic reviews

The odd conclusion renders it somewhat oblique, but Perfume is a feast for the senses.

Long regarded as unfilmable, Patrick Suskind's 1985 novel "Perfume" has finally reached the screen in a blockbuster production that succeeds reasonably well in achieving what many said was beyond the scope of cinema: conveying the world of scent and smell.

The seductive, sensory prose of Patrick Suskind's bestseller, "Perfume," reaches the screen with loads of visual panache but only intermittent magic.

A memorable and outrageous movie, but one more likely to be remembered as a massive folly than a whopping success.

Deeply flawed though it may be, Perfume is a challenging motion picture, and one whose impressions are not easily shaken.

It's a noble experiment in pushing the limits of cinema, but Tykwer never achieves true profundity.

Perfume is ultimately an unmistakable failure, but there's a strange majesty to its epic overreaching. It can be faulted for many things, but not for lacking the courage of its convictions.

Weaves a sensual spell of extraordinary delicacy, then sustains it -- up to a point.

What's missing is less a sense of the protagonist's inner nose (which is very well-trammeled) as a sense of his inner life, motivation or desire.

Try as it might to be refined and provocative, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer never rises above the pedestrian creepiness of its conceit.