Irreversible [Audio: French]

Extremely difficult to endure, and if you choose to endure it, it could leave you feeling angry and upset. Nevertheless, this is serious filmmaking, and Noe is a gifted filmmaker.

A fascinating study in excess, a movie that seduces and repulses as it explores the merciless nature of fate.

There is nothing moral about Irreversible -- only sneeringly superior and nihilistic, like Johnny Rotten at his most fatuous.

Fails because of its gratuitous rape and violence and also because of its pretentious and intellectually one-dimensional grounds, which make the violence at the end feel even worse.

A genuine outlaw work of art.

A sometimes repellent yet deeply moving film.

Noé weaves together the off-putting elements into something that sears itself permanently in the memory.

Contains crippling, extended acts of sexual violence and general inhumanity, yet, under the bleeding rawness of it all, was a film of brilliant technical achievement and unrivaled, unrelenting ferocity.

The lurid gimmick of a barking sideshow host.

Noe is a confrontational master, no question.

The film is almost unwatchable at the beginning, but the chaos and horror of the swinging camera stabilizes, the film becomes more structured and horrifying long after the cinematic devices calm down.

Me? I'm going to go watch "The Brady Bunch" to wash these images out of mind. And, I'm going to withstand the fury of those who decide I'm a squeamish wimp.