Idle Hands
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: April 30, 1999 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
31
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
4
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Loaded with smart sight gags and endearing secondary characters, it effectively mixes slapstick splatter and deadpan satire...Pretty damned irresistible. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Green and Henson make an inspired comic team, Sawa has the befuddled stoner thing down pat, and Alba is, in a word, yummy. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Exhibiting high spirits and a crazed comic energy. It doesn't quite work, but it goes down swinging--with a disembodied hand. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesGene Seymour
What Idle Hands lacks in originality, it makes up for in energy and insolence. It takes guts for a movie to indulge as much as this one does in proto-hippie humor and you find yourself tickled, in spite of yourself, by the movie's nerve, if not its jokes. Read full review
60
New Times (L.A.)Glenn Gaslin
This wry and surprisingly high-gloss production brings back the good stuff: zombies, latex body parts, screaming women on altars, errant eyeballs, and guys with no necks trying to eat burritos. Read full review
60
Film ThreatRon Wells
Hey, it's not "Gone With the Wind" or even "Nightmare on Elm Street", so don't expect a masterpiece. You get a little nudity, a lot of gore, Seth Green doing his ironic commentary thing, and an easy way to kill a couple of hours. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyStaff (Not Credited)
Let us now praise Seth ''Scott Evil'' Green, whose beautiful delivery of otherwise generic wisecracks is all that stands between this painfully derivative horror comedy and a premature date with the eject button. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Ill-timed "Hands" has a very limited grasp of comedy.
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
This briefly inspired bit of surreality quickly descends into gratuitous bondage, mayhem and dumb humour, marking the usual progression from mildly absurd premise to gratingly idiotic conclusion. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
There's about half an hour's worth of sickly amusing material here...Unfortunately, that leaves a solid hour's worth of witless screaming, running around and expiring in a welter of icky special effects. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
Their splashy gore is more convincing than this incompetent horror-comedy's attempt to mock bourgeois high school dissoluteness without appearing judgmental. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMonica Eng
It's got the sex. It's got the violence. And, most important, it has an array of pot-centered jokes that might be funny to someone under the influence of an illegal substance. [30 Apr 1999]
25
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
There's just one problem: it's not scary and it's not funny...Idle Hands transcends that mundane level of badness into the realm of gross ineptitude. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
When a movie sets out to be awful and achieves its goal, does that make it a success? Read full review
20
The New York TimesLawrence Van Gelder
Even pretensions toward the humorous and hip cannot save this blood-drenched film from its innate tastelessness. Read full review
10
L.A. WeeklyNicole Campos
Many in the youthful target audience won’t be able to identify the "homages," and the script is far too lazy for seasoned horror fans to stomach. Read full review
10
VarietyRobert Koehler
Perhaps thinking he had a farce to play with, Flender encourages tons of mugging; by overplaying what should be underplayed, helmer and cast deliver a fatal stab to the intended comedy-horror. Read full review
10
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Let's talk about it quickly, because the thumbs of both my hands have gone similarly crazy. They're pointing downward and refuse to budge until I finish this review. Read full review
0
USA TodayStaff [Not Credited]
It's an unholy mess.
0
SalonMary Elizabeth Williams
As stupefyng as Idle Hands is while the title appendage is still attached to Anton, it goes into a whole other realm of godawfulness when the demon digits take off on their own. Read full review
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