A Hologram for the King
Lionsgate | Release Date: April 22, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
18
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 21, 2016
Hanks’ winning performance covers a lot of holes, but not all of them. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenApr 20, 2016
Hanks is perfect in the central role, drawing on both his dramatic and comic acting skills. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTom RussoApr 21, 2016
It’s like an international-relations microcosm imagined by the Coen brothers, down to an occasional sense that the absurdity isn’t taking us anywhere. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 20, 2016
Writer-director Tom Tykwer is clearly a fan of the source material, and he has done an admirable job of taking a melancholy, beautifully rendered piece of prose and catapulting it to visual life. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 22, 2016
It’s a sweet, deliberately meandering movie, and it took me a while to connect with it. But it won me over because ultimately it conveys so well that feeling of estrangement that is both terrifying and comic for any farflung traveler. Read full review
60
EmpireJonathan PileMay 23, 2016
An adaptation of the Dave Eggers novel that struggles to make itself stand out, content instead to coast by on gentle comedy and Hanks’ charm. Pleasant but ultimately forgettable. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyApr 22, 2016
If it sounds like Hologram is basically about a middle-aged white guy getting his groove back in the Middle East, well, yes, it is that. But if you squint hard enough, it’s also a little bit more. Read full review
58
IndieWireEric KohnApr 20, 2016
A Hologram For the King never congeals into a single, involving story. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 21, 2016
Hologram for the King is a baffling film, cinema without weight or heft. The problem is not that anything on screen is troubling, it's that nothing there, not even star Tom Hanks, is capable of holding our interest or attention for very long. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 26, 2016
A misshapen, aimless midlife crisis travelogue/romance with discourses on the the repression and inequity of Saudi Arabia, dating in the Islamic world and the nature of American/Chinese business competition, it’s the weakest Tom Hanks vehicle in decades. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsEthan SacksApr 20, 2016
Much like the technology in the title, "A Hologram for the King" flickers in and out of focus — sharp at times, but ultimately lacking resolution. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithApr 27, 2016
To describe this as a movie about a mediocre businessman biding his time before an appointment probably makes it sound more exciting than it is. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedApr 21, 2016
Rambling, well-shot but inconsequential curio. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaApr 22, 2016
All the elements of Eggers' story are there; the emotional and psychological resonance is not. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comNick AllenApr 22, 2016
As Tom Tykwer’s adaptation of David Eggers’ novel proves, it’s entertainment just to stare back at Hanks. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 23, 2016
There's no denying the ambition in A Hologram for the King, but a struggle does not add up to a satisfying movie — or even a reasonable facsimile of the beauty and terror Eggers evokes on the page. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 21, 2016
A Hologram for the King has great energy, and also a languorous, lived-in quality. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonApr 20, 2016
As thoughtfully rendered as much of Hologram is, the film eventually succumbs to the material’s fundamental triteness, offering done-to-death life lessons about second chances and the value of broadening one’s perspective. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayApr 20, 2016
Remarkably faithful, except in how it rather boldly transforms Dave Eggers's drama into a broad comedy. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonApr 21, 2016
It’s true that not much happens — except cinema at its finest. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 21, 2016
Malaise isn't Tom Hanks' thing, so A Hologram for the King with its death of an IT salesman vibe isn't a good fit. Hanks is far too indelible as a can-do personality to play why bother. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith UhlichApr 20, 2016
A Hologram For The King is a 97-minute movie that feels like it was cut down from two-hours-plus, with whole subplots reduced or jettisoned in what was likely an arduous post-production period. Read full review
58
The Film StageNathan BartlebaughApr 27, 2016
Hologram is a fine experience as a tranquil matinee entertainment, but it fails to pull off its own illusion because it never quite understands what sort of story it really is telling. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorApr 21, 2016
This time, Tykwer somehow manages to turn Eggers’s attempt at an era-defining story into a weird little cross-cultural comedy with romantic overtones while remaining largely faithful to the original plot and dialogue. Here, globalization’s economic devastation is just a nice backdrop for some amusing – and, thankfully, inoffensive – observation of one American abroad. Read full review
40
The GuardianNigel M SmithApr 20, 2016
Tom Tykwer’s adaptation is a meandering mess of half-baked storylines that amount to little. Hanks’s affable presence keeps it all afloat. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenApr 20, 2016
When it isn’t trying too hard to be instructive or jokey, Tykwer’s film fluently conveys the hard truth of diminished relevance, geopolitical as well as personal. Hanks’ portrayal of a man caught between utter defeat and a yearning to begin again is pitch-perfect. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen HoldenApr 21, 2016
It takes an actor with the finesse of Tom Hanks to turn a story of confusion, perplexity, frustration and panic into an agreeably uncomfortable comedy. Read full review
50
The PlaylistKenji FujishimaApr 20, 2016
Hanks brings to Clay a nervous energy, a sense of desperation to even his most outwardly optimistic of gestures, that nevertheless always seems tempered by a more sober inner awareness of his own failures. It’s a remarkable performance in a film that is unworthy of it. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldApr 21, 2016
This stranger-in-a-strange-land mood piece has an appealingly serene pace. Read full review
57
The VergeTasha RobinsonApr 26, 2016
The place the story ends doesn't necessarily fit with where it began, which leaves Hologram feeling like a fractured and uncertain oddity. But at least by the end, it's a beautifully melancholy oddity. It's inconsistent in its intentions, but at least some of those intentions are good ones. Read full review
64
TheWrapMichael NordineApr 21, 2016
A Hologram for the King succeeds at putting us in Alan’s meandering headspace, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find his journey as meaningful as he does. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangApr 20, 2016
A Hologram for the King arrives at its feel-good conclusion honestly enough, but its cultural engagement feels tentative, even secondhand: The movie conjures no shortage of potent images, but push a bit deeper and your fist closes on empty air. Read full review
80
Village VoiceBilge EbiriApr 20, 2016
Tykwer sublimates what Eggers made explicit: the joblessness, the debt, the isolation. He knows the power of an image, a gesture, a brief exchange, so he captures those social themes in flashes, which ironically gives them new power. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 21, 2016
The star shouldn’t be blamed, though, for the failings of the direction and script. Here’s a case of consistently miscalibrated tone, from the first clumsy stabs at humor to the hero’s default expression, which is painfully pained. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 21, 2016
It’s that rare fish-out-of-water story in which the fish miraculously manages to stop needing water, and learns to crave air instead. Read full review
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