Godsend
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: April 30, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
24
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
0
Mixed:
9
Negative:
23
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The umpteenth recycled shocker about a mystical dark child with an aura of disaster. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Unravels in a series of spooky dream sequences, dopey detective work, and a couple of richly hambone-ian De Niro soliloquies. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The best that can be said about the film is that its naturalistic look and dark hues are occasionally intriguing, and its twist is fairly unpredictable, if far-fetched. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It's a thriller, a bad thriller, completely lacking in psychological or emotional truth. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Godsend is two-thirds of a good movie, with a final third that's just downright awful. So much wasted potential only makes the whole thing that much more painful. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneRobert K. Elder
Downright scary in some places, Godsend might be more potent if it wasn't watered down by religious trope predictability. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
To its credit, the film has an engagingly bleak and minimalist look, and a brisk pace. But the chills are few. Every step seems contrived, predictable or unintentionally funny. Read full review
40
VarietyJoe Leydon
Solid performances, handsome production values and a few genuinely creepy scenes are not enough to save Godsend. Read full review
40
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
When is a horror movie not a horror movie? When it’s a strained, by-the-numbers production that limps to an unlikely conclusion like Godsend. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Godsend is godawful. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
De Niro wears a shamefaced look most of the time, as if doubly embarrassed: He agreed to a movie he knew was worthless, yet he's too lazy or indifferent to give us his best. Read full review
38
PremiereAaron Hillis
With its cheap scares, its defiant lack of special effects, and the most blatant usage of a red coat as a stand-out prop since Schindler’s List, Godsend is as much an experiment-gone-wrong as its Frankensteinesque plot. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Kinnear and Romijn-Stamos appear to be vying for the title of filmdom's least-convincing married couple, while Robert De Niro, as the movie's modern-day Dr. Frankenstein, takes his own expert career slumming to a new depth -- he's become an evil clone of a once-great actor. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
A consistently underused and often underrated actor, Kinnear gives one of those sympathetic performances that prevent you from believing the worst about a movie despite the sounding alarms. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
This thin concoction of domestic drama and thriller suspense won't hold up after the curiosity factor runs its brief course. Neither Robert De Niro nor a phalanx of a dozen producers can deliver Godsend from unintentional comedy. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Despite its provocative premise, this throwback to deliberately paced, low-tech chillers of the pre-CGI era is a dreary slog through haunted-child movie cliches -- portentous dreams, glassy-eyed stares, cryptic pronouncements. Read full review
30
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
As the film's boo! moments get spookier and more frequent, Godsend gets more and more inane. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
The picture, which fails to achieve its ambitions or to fulfill our expectations, is ultimately worse than a violent piece of hack work, in which the director isn't interested in displaying his integrity -- or taste. You'd be better off downloading the trailer: a much more convincing piece of storytelling. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
As in most bad thrillers, the number of pointless shocks increases in direct proportion to the drama's decreasing vitality, like defibrilator paddles jolting a dying man. Read full review
25
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
How could such a high-octane cast produce such low-octane horror? Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
An unsatisfying, overly restrained bore, capped off by an ending so strange and inconclusive, it feels like something you'd find on the ''deleted scenes'' portion of a DVD. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Every scare is telegraphed. Every surprise is recycled from a better thriller. Even the devil would send this one back. Read full review
25
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
At the half-hour mark, Godsend falls off the edge of reason, veering wildly away from what seems the promising beginning of a drama about the ethics of human cloning and instead becomes the cheesiest of hallucinatory horror movies. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
There's no excuse for a thriller as lame, leaden and unthrilling as Godsend, which manages to take a potentially interesting subject - human cloning - and use it to put audiences to sleep. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
In Godsend, we have the spectacle of three good actors tied to the mast of a sinking premise. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Neither very scary nor very interesting, Godsend is an unresurrectable muddle. Read full review
20
Village VoiceMark Holcomb
The pivotal plot twist isn't hard to predict, and Brit theater vet Hamm and screenwriter Mark Bomback rely on jolts that date back to the silent era. Read full review
20
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
It mostly serves as a warning to stay away from future films involving director Nick Hamm and screenwriter Mark Bomback. Read full review
20
EmpireMark Dinning
Godsend is based on an intriguing premise. Sadly, it's mangled into an Omen-lite disaster area, thanks to a script torn between making a moral point about cloning and cheap shocks. Read full review
12
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Godsend makes swill of religion, science, family, and morality. It has the sensitivity of a cactus, the ingenuity of a square wheel, and the integrity of a CEO. Read full review
10
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Not just a bad thriller but also a thing of pain. Read full review
10
SlateDavid Edelstein
Turns into a pea-brained hodgepodge of "The Omen" (1976), "The Sixth Sense" (1999), and about 30 Grade-Z Bela Lugosi mad-scientist movies. Read full review
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