Hancock, whom the paper points out is a "former Houstonian", "shows respect if not reverence for his state's mythical heritage, even while viewing it from modern perspectives"; it notes the "build-up to battle is prolonged and talky, and for a classic tale of heroic defiance, this Alamo feels more restrained than rousing. Again, it's no-win. When Hancock supplies history, the action and drama bog down. And even when he's right, he's wrong, since so many historians disagree about what happened at the site in what is now Downtown San Antonio". Entertainment Weekly gave it a "C+", saying "Hancock's moderate, apolitical, war-is-hell dramatization of the famous 1836 battle that shaped the future of a free and independent American Texas isn't nearly the flop that the exceptionally harsh and unavoidable advance chatter has suggested it is. It's not the jingoistic call to patriotism of John Wayne's 1960 version, either. But The Alamo never harmonizes into a cinematic experience any more resonant than the average, manly, why-we-fight pic, or coalesces into a stirring cry for freedom". According to Roger Ebert: "Conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that any movie named The Alamo must be simplistic and rousing, despite the fact that we already know all the defenders got killed (if we don't know it, we find out in the first scene). Here is a movie that captures the loneliness and dread of men waiting for two weeks for what they expect to be certain death, and it somehow succeeds in taking those pop-culture brand names like Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and giving them human form". He awarded the film 3.5 stars out of 4, and it notably became the film's most positive review. The film was a box office flop. Its opening was overshadowed by The Passion of the Christ, and first weekend earnings were only $9.1 million. The film closed with $22.4 million in the domestic market, and only $25.8 million in total, on a $107 million budget. The Alamo remains one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. See also Battle of the Alamo The Alamo (1960 film) The Last Command (1955 film) The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory (1987 TV movie) References External links Alamo Sentry: Popular Culture of The Alamo View of movie set from Google Maps 2004 films 2004 Western (genre) films American films based on actual events American Western (genre) films 2000s English-language films Spanish-language