Congo
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: June 9, 1995 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
24
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
8
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The result is not a movie that is very good, exactly, but it's entertaining and funny. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This is easily the worst filmed version of anything penned by the prolific author. Read full review
50
NewsweekJack Kroll
Congo is basically the old African ooga-mooga movie brought into the P.C., high-tech age. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineStaff(not credited)
Congo, adapted by John Patrick Shanley and directed by Stephen Spielberg protege Frank Marshall, is not one of the better silly action pictures set in gratuitously fake jungles and featuring nefarious foreigners, threatening natives, and talking gorillas. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
As in "Arachnophobia", director Frank Marshall can't decide whether he's making a thriller or a laff-it-up lark. [09 Jun 1995, Pg.03.D]
40
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
This glib, overheated film about vicious primates delivers little suspense, nor are there signs of the 65 cited volumes and articles that turned Mr. Crichton's book into such a learning experience. Read full review
40
Washington PostHal Hinson
Even with these high-end artists on the team, though, the movie seems thin. Read full review
40
EmpireCaroline Westbrook
What begins as mildly intriguing stuff with some genuinely unsettling moments, quickly melts into a plot so confusing that it almost begins to look as though the editor was taking some mind-altering substance. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian Lowry
Whatever John Patrick Shanley's script may have tried to do in adapting Crichton's book, it clearly feels as if the picture were edited to leave the action sequences in while removing any connecting material that might have helped them make sense. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
As if aware that Congo is the least interesting adventure ever filmed, screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (who once wrote a funny movie called "Moonstruck") tries to inoculate the activities with humor. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
But Congo leads to nothing but a fierce battle with the gray gorillas, a kind of guns vs. fangs scene; and a convenient and incongruous volcano eruption that looks as artificial as a video game. Read full review
25
San Francisco ExaminerBarbara Shulgasser
In stupidity, this movie ranks up there among the greats. Read full review
25
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
One thing is certain: It's a bomb trying to be a hit, and at that it'll never succeed. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Without Spielberg's technical pizazz, and with a gummy mixture of homage and spoof, Congo chokes on its own tongue in cheek. Read full review
20
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
I don't know the novel, but judging from the script by Crichton and John Patrick Shanley, this must be scraping the bottom of the Crichton barrel. Read full review
16
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
All I know is that something has gone terribly, drum-beatingly wrong in Congo (Paramount, PG-13), and you can sense Jungle Trouble brewing from the git-go. Read full review
10
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Not only have bothersome plot changes been made, but the entire tone of the book has been transformed from tension to tongue-in-cheek with dismal results. Read full review
10
The New YorkerBruce Diones
The director, Frank Marshall, who has produced films for Steven Spielberg, gets his own Michael Crichton book to play with—and the results are disastrous. Read full review
0
Austin ChronicleSteve Davis
Jawdroppingly bad, this adaptation of Michael Crichton's 1980 novel about a talking ape named Amy and a fabled lost city deep in the jungles of central Africa is as sophisticated in execution as a Jungle Jim movie. Read full review
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