Avis Metacritic

At 75, Aranda can still make his actors sizzle on the screen as well as he did 10 years ago in "Lovers." The explicitly hot bits here may be few and far between, but what there is of them is choice.

Succeeds as a full-bodied diversion because it takes even its silly elements seriously. If you're in the mood for impressive castles and sumptuous costumes, torch-lit processions and decorative nudity, this is the place to turn.

It's López de Ayala's show, and she's relentless in her energy and passion.

An often watchable, though goofy and lurid, blast of a costume drama set in the late 15th century.

At heart it's a randy, oversexed soap opera in period garb.

de Ayala is required to supply too much of the energy in a film that is, overall, far too staid for its subject matter.

Like an ''Afterschool Special'' with costumes by Gianni Versace, Mad Love looks better than it feels.

Nothing more or less than an outright bodice-ripper -- it should have ditched the artsy pretensions and revelled in the entertaining shallows.

Pleasing to the eye, with lavish sets, ravishing costumes and two great-looking stars. Unfortunately, there is little else to recommend this overwrought, melodramatic bodice-ripper.

Adroit but finally a trifle flat, Mad Love doesn't galvanize its outrage the way, say, Jane Campion might have done, but at least it possesses some.