Hearts in Atlantis
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: September 28, 2001 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
14
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Inspiring without sinking into sentimentality or cliche, Hearts of Atlantis is intelligent, heartfelt and genuine, a rare story of childhood for adults. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Rarely does a movie make you feel so warm and so uneasy at the same time. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
The heartfelt use of extrasensory events as metaphors for a child's grasp of adult mysteries has a poetry to it, and the unblinking sympathy for kids struggling with evil and with the strange frequencies of prepubescent passion can, if your defenses are down, lay you out. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
Where other King stories and hundreds of other movies simplistically exploit the archetype, this tale intricately relates the actions of its young evildoer to the more abstract forces bearing down on the adults. Read full review
80
Washington PostRita Kempley
Yes, it's corny and reemerging cynics need not apply. But it is blissfully heartwarming. Read full review
80
New Times (L.A.)Robert Wilonsky
As stirring as it is slight, as effective as it is familiar. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Assisted by a well-crafted script by the veteran William Goldman and a masterful performance by Anthony Hopkins, Hicks has turned two King short stories into a somber meditation on the dreams and frustrations of childhood and the ways the adult world makes its darker qualities known. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeJay Carr
A powerful and surehandedly crafted depth charge of a movie.
75
USA TodayMike Clark
Don't underestimate the appeal of a heart-tugger that's this well mounted. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Hicks doesn't always keep the story clear and compelling, but Hopkins is in top form. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Sometimes thrilling, sometimes suffocatingly tasteful adaptation of Stephen King's 1999 novel.
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Too poky and contrived to be a good movie, but its lushly serene atmospherics, given current events, make it a pure slice of sentimental comfort food. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianBarry Johnson
The mix of psychic thriller and childhood memory movies is smooth, maybe too smooth. Neither becomes truly gripping, despite fine acting by Hopkins, Yelchin and Boorem. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerDesmond Ryan
A film with many redeeming qualities. Its heart is certainly in the right place, but its head makes some misjudgments. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The few who saw the embalmed adaptation of "Snow Falling on Cedars" will recognize the same stifling approach brought to this more accessible material by director Scott Hicks. Read full review
60
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
The resulting film directed by Scott Hicks is afflicted by terminal nostalgic drift. You come out of the theater with nothing more specific than half-pleasant memories of baseball gloves, Ferris wheels and vintage automobiles. I've had naps that were more exciting. Read full review
50
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Slightly soggy. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
A fussy piece of schmaltz that makes you long for "Stand By Me," a vastly superior coming-of-age tale from King's pen. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The kids provide all the vitality, but even they've been muffled by the director. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
Unabashedly sentimental, it's meant to touch our hearts in profound and important ways, but misses the mark by drawing too deeply from a pool of schmaltz. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
What's missing, really, is a point. Like "Snow Falling on Cedars," Hicks composes every shot in Hearts in Atlantis as if it were his last. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
What a shame, though, that the movie isn't a livelier business. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Hicks smothers the story in portentous images and the obligatory memory-inducing soundtrack. The effect is like peering at a photo through layers of shellac: evocative but remote. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Is it possible to have too much Anthony Hopkins? Believe it or not, the answer is yes. Hopkins' quiet power and perfectly formed vowels overwhelm the rickety, falsely sentimental Hearts in Atlantis. Read full review
40
Film ThreatKevin Park
The reason I hate this movie so much (besides the fact that it sucked) is that there was so much behind it and it still was a bland. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
For all the highfalutin dialogue and mysterioso goings-on, the only true mystery Hicks and Goldman conjure up is whether the mellifluously voiced outsider is dangling his new friend a little too closely on his knee. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The movie is pleasant enough, in its studied way, and Mr. Hopkins does as well as anyone could in the role of a wise man with vaguely supernatural powers. Still, it's awfully amorphous and pokey.
40
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
I had looked forward to seeing King's low men and their hideous yellow coats and monstrous high-finned automobiles, but what we've got here is less King than Goldman, and less fun to boot. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
It's not hell, but limbo, junior high-school style. Read full review
0
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Mush, delivered with a trembling, quasi-biblical solemnity, is what emanates from Anthony Hopkins most of the time in Hearts in Atlantis, a nostalgic fiasco so shameless it makes movies like "Simon Birch" and "Frequency" seem as austere as the work of Robert Bresson. Read full review
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