Anonymous
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: October 28, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
19
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Time OutKeith UhlichOct 25, 2011
Other than ludicrously pulpy fun, Anonymous, true to its title, ultimately signifies nothing. Read full review
50
NPRBob MondelloOct 28, 2011
Bottom line: Grant the film's big moments a kind of loopy majesty, and note that they're better acted than they deserve to be, not just by Ifans, Redgrave and Spall, but by David Thewlis and Edward Hogg as the villainous father-son team of William and Robert Cecil. It's a classy cast. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyOct 28, 2011
The less you know about Shakespeare, the more you're likely to enjoy Anonymous. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 27, 2011
With Anonymous, director Roland Emmerich gives us "Shakespeare in Luck." Make that "Dumb Luck": In this alternately entertaining and wildly ham-handed speculative romp. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliOct 27, 2011
So if you don't mind, I'll just go back to believing that someone named Shakespeare (whoever he was) wrote Shakespeare's works. And I'll just go back to regarding them with awe. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 27, 2011
Say this for Emmerich, he's not stuffy. And he lucks out big-time with his cast. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisOct 27, 2011
The moviemaking is proficient, if unremarkable. I like the idea of an Elizabethan action movie apparently more than I enjoy watching one. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyOct 27, 2011
An airless, bilious, endless pageant of pseudohistory. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 27, 2011
Anonymous is a vulgar prank on the English literary tradition, a travesty of British history and a brutal insult to the human imagination. Apart from that, it's not bad. Read full review
50
TimeMary PolsOct 27, 2011
Emmerich has turned his attention to the past. He and screenwriter John Orloff have embraced a kitchen sink's worth of 20th-century conspiracy theories about the provenance of Shakespeare's plays, each wilder than the last. Oliver Stone's "JFK" looks reasonable compared to this. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie OgleOct 27, 2011
The cast is impressive, and the story even soapier than "The Tudors," if you like that sort of thing. Read full review
50
Village VoiceNick PinkertonOct 25, 2011
Emmerich's movie is sporadically enjoyable trash with better performances than it has any right to: Hogg's verminous villain leaves a trail of cold, oozing hisses. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid DenbyOct 21, 2011
The Oxford theory is ridiculous, yet the filmmakers go all the way with it, producing endless scenes of indecipherable court intrigue in dark, smoky rooms, and a fashion show of ruffs, farthingales, and halberds. The more far-fetched the idea, it seems, the more strenuous the effort to pass it off as authentic. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 29, 2011
Frankly, if I'm going to be offered a heaping pile of revisionism about the greatest writer who ever lived, I'd rather it be from someone with more academic heft than the director of "Independence Day" and "Godzilla." I trust the teachers who receive this film's study guide have a shredder handy. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumOct 26, 2011
Thumpingly silly yet self-serious period-piece what-if. Read full review
42
IndieWireEric KohnOct 25, 2011
Emmerich takes the story at face value and delivers a film unlike any of his others. That is to say, a boring one. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanOct 28, 2011
Though the cast is energetic and the intrigues diverting, you'll have to distance yourself from reality to enjoy so much outlandish scheming. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovOct 26, 2011
"Shakespeare in Love" it ain't, but the wealth of stage and screen talent on display, most if not all of whom have essayed one or another of the Bard's characters in the past (including a modern-day introduction by Sir Derek Jacobi), make for a pleasantly ridiculous descent into utter confabulation. Read full review
40
EmpirePhil de SemlyenOct 24, 2011
A curveball from the man who made "2012" and "Independence Day" and probably only a brief respite for the world's major cities.It's more of an interesting curio to a blockbuster career but there's fun to be had here if you look hard enough. Read full review
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