Green Zone
Universal Pictures | Release Date: March 12, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
13
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
TimeRichard CorlissDec 14, 2010
An expensive flop and the latest Iraq movie to be shunned by the mass audience, Green Zone was still the year's most visceral, thrilling entertainment. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It is a thriller, not a documentary. It's my belief that the nature of the neocon evildoing has by now become pretty clear. Others will disagree. The bottom line is: This is one hell of a thriller. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Damon's prior appearances as Jason Bourne make him credible in this role. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
When Mr. Greengrass made "United 93," his 2006 reconstruction of one of the Sept. 11 hijackings, some people fretted that it was too soon. My own response to Green Zone is almost exactly the opposite: it's about time. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Made with daring and passion, it attempts the impossible and comes remarkably close to pulling it off. So close, in fact, that the skill and audacity used, the shock and awe of this highly entertaining attempt, are more significant than the imperfect results. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Christopher Rouse's rapid-fire editing nervously stitches the stunts, chases, fights and confrontations together. It's a remarkable film. Read full review
80
EmpireMark Dinning
Bourne goes epic. A wham-bam actioner, but its pointed political subtext ensures Damon and Greengrass deliver their most provocative mission yet. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
A master of smash-mash montage and choreographed chaos, Greengrass is the best action director working today, adroit at producing the sense of everyone converging and everything happening simultaneously. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
The cast is strong, and Damon is a dependable center for all this, a classic American good guy wanting to know what's rotten and why. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
No matter where your political gullibilities lie, Green Zone is a riveting piece of actioneering. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Watchable in spite of Greengrass as much as because of him. The story is good enough to make viewers want to ignore the photography. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
Mixes fact and speculation in a way that's already raised the ire of some on the right as well as on the left. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin Wilson
Green Zone can't make up its mind whether it's "The Bourne Insurrection" or "Hurt Locker: The Prequel." Read full review
75
PremiereJordan Burchette
It's at times implausible and heavy-handed, but thrillers need villains and it's not like the Ba'ath Party had an exclusive license on 'em. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
This is a movie that recognizes there's no straight line to the truth, which is part of what makes it vaguely unsatisfying -- though it's also what keeps it honest. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
To pretend that the film doesn't make a political statement is silly. Of course it does. It wouldn't be effective at all if it didn't. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Indeed, Green Zone plays a little bit like a video game version of the Oscar-winning film (The Hurt Locker)-- which should tell you right off whether it's for you or not. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
For the first time in Greengrass' career, the politics too often get ahead of the action, so points that might have been subtly embedded in the story are instead laid out like a left-wing editorial. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Miller's wake-up call is meant to be ours. Too little and too late? Maybe. But even in this Bourne Zone, Damon and Greengrass haven't shirked their duty to enlighten and entertain. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
The jittery, scattershot camerawork of Greengrass's longtime cinematographer, Barry Ackroyd, was used far more coherently in Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker," and the constant blurry close-ups of computer screens and street-level scrums lose their power with each successive cut. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Zone feels anticlimactic now. It also pales in comparison to Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker," the most powerful film yet made about the Iraq war. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Partly real and partly, increasingly, fantastic and outlandish in its wishful thinking. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Green Zone is just an excuse for director Paul Greengrass to haul out his jittery hand-held camera as Miller and Co. sprint through the streets and buildings of Baghdad in pursuit of one villain or another. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Green Zone is somewhere between a blockbuster and a tract -- a traction movie. It whizzes and bangs and sizzles as it chases the truth like a dog off its leash. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
In the wake of the Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker" - a far better film, and one with a less strident, less obvious agenda - Green Zone arrives looking strangely anachronistic. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Green Zone wraps up with a wish-fulfillment fantasy that is about as believable as watching reinforcements riding in to save Custer. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
With Green Zone, though, the malaise has finally hit me. So while Damon's Miller uncovers the (inconvenient) truth of why the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, all I want to know is: How does he suggest we get out? Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
To suggest that a lone, brave soldier could have set things right with a little amateur sleuthing seems like cinematic wish-fulfillment, an insult both to the intelligence of viewers and to the troops. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River) is the real culprit here, creating a crude paint-by-numbers fiction that keeps yelling about the importance of the truth while hurtling in the opposite direction. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Director Paul Greengrass has applied his jumpy, tumbling visual style to action blockbusters with Matt Damon and serious dramatizations of political events. This Iraq war drama makes a game attempt to meld the two, though manufacturing thrills takes precedence over any kind of journalistic insight. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Once Damon's one-man truth squad goes off the reservation and starts behaving too much like Jason Bourne for comfort, the film begins not only spilling more blood but also leaking crucial credibility. Read full review
50
ObserverRex Reed
Shot by Barry Ackroyd, the same cinematographer who filmed "The Hurt Locker," and using the same camera techniques, this movie looks like outtakes from a much better film. Read full review
50
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
Green Zone isn't so much a bad movie as a misguided one. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
For a while Green Zone generates genuine excitement, as well as plenty of provocation--a fatuous surrogate for Ahmed Chalabi, a pervasive scorn for American planning--but then goes off its own reservation into a won't-fly zone of awkward preachments and hapless absurdities. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineRay Greene
Green Zone is an exercise in commercial cowardice masquerading as a thriller about political bravery. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
It's also rather tawdry. The climax is as ludicrous as any Jack Bauer adventure, and Greengrass is always on shaky ground. Literally. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
What lends the film its grip and its haste is also what makes it unsatisfactory. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Not since a Nam-scarred Sly Stallone asked, "Do we get to win this time?" in "Rambo: First Blood Part II" has an American action star been deployed to rewrite history so thoroughly. Read full review
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