The screenwriters struggle to integrate the coded transmissions with the action, and the flamboyant set piece battles feel like so much empty rhetoric.
This is the kind of film where you think you can predict everything that's going to happen upon the first shot and you spend the rest of the film praying that you're wrong. But it's fun getting there.
A powerful premise turned into a stubbornly flat, derivative war movie.
Kansas City Kansan
December 19, 2005
What we get is a surprisingly entertaining film, corny as it is at times, that could have suited John Wayne. [Published 5-13-02]
Ebert & Roeper
June 19, 2002
A relentless, bombastic and ultimately empty World War II action flick.
IGN Movies
July 02, 2008
With Windtalkers, the glaring refutations of time, space and reality impress upon viewers the simple fact that Woo is at his best when he isn't attempting anything more significant than the most emptily satisfying explosion you're likely to enjoy - a scat
