I just watched this last night. I hadn't really heard anything about it - it won the Audience Award at the TIFF this year - but then I found out Danny Boyle (a fave of mine) was the director so I felt compelled to look into it.
As of yet I haven't fully decided how I feel about it. Minor spoilers:
In many ways it was inspiring and thought-provoking; I thought that the dynamic between Jamal and the Millionaire host was especially fascinating, and I loved the way the story ruminates on luck and destiny, but some of the devices the film employs are IMO tragically tacky and cliche (the story is intentionally told in sort of a traditional, fable style, but nonetheless) and I was hoping for a more creative ending - from the opening script with the Millionaire-style A/B/C/D set-up it is obvious how things will run their course, but the story spends so much time oscillating between the conceit that everything has its place, and how it is actually possible to rise above and make what you want of life... why default to the expectation you create at the outset when you could REALLY blow people away? Which isn't to say the fact that the story does default makes it irrelevant or unmoving - I'm just saying, I was hoping it might really transcend. (Of course, the politics of movie studios and their own restrictions and agendas may have played a role - who knows what the story structure may have looked like initially... but that's baseless speculation and total digression)
This will undoubtedly become the most hyped film of the Awards Season.
I'd give it 3.5 or 4 out of 5.
(FWIW I thought Boyle's Sunshine last year might have more going for it, despite its own cliched shortcomings - but I will likely be in the microscopic minority in that opinion)
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