Amelia
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 23, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
37
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
14
Negative:
11
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Most of all, Earhart wanted to be able to fly free as a bird above the clouds, and director Nair and star Swank make her quest not only understandable but truly impressive. Read full review
80
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
When this actor (Swank) steps into the right role, she wears and inspires it like Denzel Washington. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A perfectly sound biopic, well directed and acted, about an admirable woman. It confirmed for me Earhart's courage -- not only in flying, but in insisting on living her life outside the conventions of her time for well-behaved females. The next generation of American women grew up in her slipstream. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Swank is no mere impersonator. Her Amelia, like Maggie in "Million Dollar Baby," is unwavering in her gaze, ambition, and drive... In Nair's evocatively art-directed (and sensationally costumed) film, Earhart comes alive. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
The actress and the aviatrix are a match made in heaven, but surrounding the soaring performance is a movie that's mostly earthbound. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
In an ironic twist, Mira Nair's big-hearted yet by-the-numbers biopic of Amelia Earhart never -- unlike the famous aviatrix -- takes chances. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Inside Amelia is a sharp idea struggling to get out: How does a woman marketed to the public as a star turn herself back into a human being? And at what cost? Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This movie was made to be shown to junior high history classes, not audiences in a movie theater. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Amelia goes airborne but never fully soars. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie Errigo
Swank’s moving performance, the period dressing and beautiful planes all appeal, but dramatically it doesn’t really soar. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
A frustratingly old-school, Hollywood-style, inspirational biopic about Amelia Earhart that doesn't trust a viewer's independent assessment of the famous woman pictured on the screen. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Distressingly ordinary for such an extraordinary subject. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The film's basic material, that is the history, is not without interest. And it must be admitted that every so often - for about 10 seconds every 10 minutes - we get a hint of the movie they wanted to make and hoped they were making: One about the thrill of early aviation and the promise of a young century. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Amelia is the Mack truck of flight. Heavy and lumbering, it delivers the goods, but there's not an ounce of magic in the thing. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
A lazy coffee-table book of a movie, Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Perhaps Nair believes that heroism in our tabloid era has become degraded. If so, she overcorrected. Amelia is so pure in heart that it slides right off the screen. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith Uhlich
There’s nothing more boring than a life embalmed with halfhearted Hollywood bombast, which only makes the film’s fleeting pleasures stand out all the more. Read full review
40
NPRBob Mondello
The result is verisimilitude without engagement -- a risk-taker's story told entirely without narrative risk -- and a movie that consequently never takes flight. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
So a pioneering feminist in the hands of a feminist filmmaker should have been a perfect match. But like her subject, the filmmaker gets lost in the clouds. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Amelia is a stunted epic, an ambitious and handsome-looking picture that tells its story in the dullest, most confusing way possible. Read full review
40
SlateDana Stevens
It's enough to make you wish someone would make a movie about her. Read full review
40
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Amelia is handsome yet predictable and high-minded--not a dud, exactly, but too proper, too reserved for its swaggering subject. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Most devastating to the film’s effectiveness is its inability to convey that one essential to the story of Amelia Earhart: the tangible pleasures of flying. Read full review
38
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
There's so much pluck and gumption on the screen you can smell it. Flesh and blood? Not so much. Read full review
30
VarietyJustin Chang
What rankles most about Amelia is the timidity and lack of imagination with which Nair approaches one of America's most exceptional and intriguing celebrity life stories. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyNick Pinkerton
Drawn from two Earhart bios, Mira Nair’s dull hagiography comes in about 111 minutes too long. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
With any luck this biopic of Amelia Earhart will also vanish without a trace. Hilary Swank is sorely miscast as the legendary aviator. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
It’s all so glancing and superficial that the movie doesn’t seem to have a present tense. It goes by like coming attractions. It is, however, a treasury of bad biopic dialogue. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubSam Adams
Considering its focus on a pioneering, rule-breaking icon, the film’s utter lack of personality isn’t just a failure. It’s close to an insult. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
There’s not a real or spontaneous minute in it. Read full review
25
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Better luck trying to find out what truly happened to the real Earhart than trying to diagnose all that's wrong with this hapless film. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Amelia Earhart is still missing. Read full review
20
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Alas, excesses of any pleasurable kind are absent from this exasperatingly dull production. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Tis embalmed drama is a ghost from the '80s, a decade that regularly produced surprise-free, caramelized biopics. The airless Amelia is missing practically everything. Read full review
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