Critical Hyperbole: The Worst Movie Reviews of All Time

Sometimes you read a glowing review of a mediocre film from an unknown critic and realize that it is complete and utter bullshit. Is it total stupidity that motivates these "reviewers" to be so off target? Conversely, many "esteemed" critics attempt to skewer a film that eventually becomes an established classic. And so the viewing public is occasionally goaded into shelling out good money to see a crappy film or dissuaded from viewing a cinematic masterpiece by some pompous asshole with his own agenda.

What were these movie critics thinking? We shall never know. Whatever the case, the whole lot of them should all be locked up and forced to sit through the entire works of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Here's a short list of some of the worst reviews I've ever come across:

NEW! BEST AND WORST CULT MOVIES OF ALL TIME!

Bride of Frankenstein [1935]
"This is a pompous, badly acted film, full of absurd anachronisms and inconsistencies."
—Graham Greene, The Spectator

The Wizard of Oz [1939]
"It has dwarfs, music, Technicolor, freak characters and Judy Garland. It can't be expected to have a sense of humor as well—and as for the light touch of fantasy, it weighs like a pound of fruitcake soaking wet."
-Otis Ferguson, The New Republic

Casablanca [1942]
"The love story that takes us from time to time into the past is horribly wooden and cliches everywhere lower the tension."
-William Whitebait, New Statesman

Vertigo [1958]
"The old master has turned out another Hitchcock-and-bull story in which the mystery is not so much who done it as who cares."
-Time

The Apartment [1960]
"The Apartment is without style or taste, shifting gears between pathos and slapstick without any transition . . . What can you do, after all, in a big insurance company? And where but in Hollywod would this situation be seen as comic material? . . . To me, The Apartment illustrated Hollywood's lack of contact with reality."
-Dwight MacDonald

Psycho [1960]
"For this is third-rate Hitchcock, a Grand Guignol drama in which the customers hang around just for the tiny thrill at the end, like a strip-tease; and one feels as one comes out, as in both these cases, that one has been had; bad taste in the mouth. I think the film is a reflection of a most unpleasant mind, a mean, sly sadistic little mind."
-Dwight MacDonald

Bonnie & Clyde [1967]
"A cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cut ups in Thoroughly Modern Millie. This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste . . ."
-Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

2001: A Space Odyssey [1968]
"The slab is never explained, leaving 2001, for all of its lively visual and mechanical spectacle, a kind of space-Spartacus and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story."
-John Simon, The New Leader

The Wild Bunch [1968]
"[There is] little justification for . . . this ugly, pointless, disgustingly bloody film."
-William Wolf, Cue

Dirty Harry [1971]
"Don Siegel's latest film, Dirty Harry, is an elegiac, necrophiliac, fascist love poem."
-Anthony Chase

Harold & Maude [1972]
". . . marred by a greater preponderance of sophomoric, overdone and mocking humor."
- Variety

"[A] sick, demented little movie."
- Rex Reed

The Exorcist [1973]
". . . A simplistic, overinflated shocker that reduces potentially interesting themes to banality."
-The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural

The Godfather, Part II [1974]
"It's a Frankenstein monster stitched together from leftover parts. It talks. It moves in fits and starts but it has no mind of its own . . . Looking very expensive but spiritually desperate, Part II has the air of a very long, very elaborate revue sketch."
-Vincent Canby

Eraserhead [1978]
"Like a lot of [American Film] Institute efforts, the pic has good tech values (particularly the inventive sound mixing), but little substance or subtlety . . . Lynch seems bent on emulating Herschell Gordon Lewis, the king of low-budget gore."
-Variety

Apocalypse Now [1979]
"While much of the footage is breathtaking, Apocalypse Now is emotionally obtuse and intellectually empty. It is not so much an epic account of a grueling war as an incongruous, extravagant monument to artistic self-defeat."
-Frank Rice, Time

Dawn of the Dead [1979]
"Dawn pummels the viewer with a series of evermore-grisly events . . . the actors are as woodenly uninteresting as the characters they play. Romero's script is banal when not incoherent . . . The plot isn't worth detailed description."
-Variety

The Shining [1980]
". . . comes off as being no better than a mannered version of The Amityville Horror."
-Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic

"With everything to work with, director Stanley Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King's bestseller . . . The crazier Nicholson gets, the more idiotic he looks. Shelley Duvall tranforms the warm sympathetic wife of the book into a simpering, semi-retarded hysteric."
-Variety

Once Upon a Time in America [1984]
". . . arrives as a disappointment of considerable proportions. Sprawling $32 million saga of Jewish gangsters over the decades is surprisingly deficient of clarity and purpose, as well as excitement and narrative involvement."
-Variety

The Mission [1986]
"The Mission is probably the first film in which De Niro gives a bland, uninteresting performance. The fundamental problem is that the script is cardboard thin, pinning labels on its characters and arbitrarily shoving them into various stances to make plot points."
-Variety

Come See the Paradise [1991]
"One of the truly great motion pictures of our time."
-Jim Whaley, PBS Cinema Showcase

Dying Young [1991]
"The most deeply touching love story of our time. This is one movie you'll never forget."
-Jim Whaley, PBS Cinema Showcase

Mobsters [1991]
"One of the best films of the year! . . . Joins The Godfather and Goodfellas as one of the greatest gangster films ever made!"
-Jim Whaley, PBS Cinema Showcase

City Slickers II: The Legend of Curley's Gold [1994]
"The best sequel since Godfather II."
- Patty Spitler-Wish, TV Indianapolis

The Pagemaster [1994]
"It's a hit! It's the Wizard of Oz for the '90s. This is a wonderful film."
-Garth Bishop, Parent to Parent Magazine

Beloved [1998]
"Beloved will swim in your bloodstream and echo through your bones."
-Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

Bicentennial Man [1999]
"A complete triumph! The most beautiful movie of the millennium!"
-David Sheehan, CBS TV

Rat Race [2001]
"A fabulous cast at their comedic best! Quite possibly the funniest movie ever!"
-Mark S. Allen, UPN-TV

Oliver Twist [2005]
". . . A masterpiece Dickens himself would have loved."
—Jeffrey Lyons, NBC

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