Instinct
Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: June 4, 1999 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
43
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
15
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Although Instinct is strictly a Hollywood formula picture, it's such an efficiently executed one, built around two such outstanding actors, that for the most part you won't mind. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
A perfect example of how solid directing and good acting can almost redeem a derivative story. Read full review
60
The New York TimesLawrence Van Gelder
The medium is more palatable than the saccharine message because Hopkins and Gooding know how to put on a show. Read full review
60
Village VoiceGary Dauphin
Instinct moves along at a competent clip, but it's mostly a tease. Read full review
60
SlateDavid Edelstein
The more subversive Instinct gets in proclaiming free will an illusion fostered by a rigidly repressive society, the more captive it seems to a rigidly repressive studio marketing department. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
The warning against actors playing with dogs or children should be expanded to include men in gorilla suits. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
A mushy-headed, unintentionally funny inspirational drama that plays like a clumsy attempt to crossbreed "The Shawshank Redemption" and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
You could be forgiven for thinking -- occasionally -- that you just stumbled into "The Silence of the Apes." Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverHal Hinson
Instinct offers gorillas in the midst of one mediocre movie. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Pardon my pulling anthropological rank, but Instinct -- a movie about an ape-man savant -- seems a quart low on common sense. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's well-acted by a likable cast and is well-intended, but it misses: It doesn't come off as the powerful socio-environmental statement it wants to be. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJohn Anderson
A greatest-hits collection of plot devices and emotional cues from such films as "Gorillas in the Mist" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," making it something of a trained chimp, one that apes a lot of good movies while making itself look ridiculous. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleRussell Smith
There's plenty of solid, intelligent content here to stir the mind and heart, assuming you're able to overlook the distinctly patronizing presentation. Read full review
50
Washington PostRita Kempley
A sloppily structured, snoozily paced psychodrama about living in harmony with nature and all the rest of that tree-hugging hooey. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
Oscar baiting is the main point of this unintentionally silly drama. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
In the end, Powell thanks his doctor for sharing the journey, but audiences who sit through this zoologically daft back-to-nature clinker may feel far less charitable. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyHazel-Dawn Dumpert
John Turtletaub directs Gerald DiPego's silly script, pumping it full of sudden shocks and cheap dramatics where there should be steady tension and character development. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
If there's anything worse than a movie hammered together out of pieces of bad screenplays, it's a movie made from the scraps of good ones. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
In this bizarre tale of man among the apes and a psychiatrist among madmen -- an over-emotional hybrid of "Gorillas in the Mist" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" -- style buries substance. Read full review
30
Film ThreatRon Wells
The audience will respond better to ENTERTAINMENT than a club to the head. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyStaff(Not credited)
Never mind that the film's portrayal of the mentally ill is on a par with "There's Something About Mary" -- the clumsy moral that we were all better off as hunters and gatherers couldn't be sillier. Read full review
25
San Francisco ExaminerWesley Morris
It's a tale of two missused Academy Award winners trying to justify their participation in a moribund, noisome redux of any disposable prison movie you care to remember by lobbing Oscar clips at each other. Read full review
20
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
In search of inspiration and the human spirit triumphant, they managed to cook up a pot of sanctimonious, reductive claptrap (which the credits confess was only "inspired" by Quinn's book) that's not in the least instructive or entertaining. Read full review
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