Irreversible
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: March 7, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
51
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
9
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
38
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Noe's summation is an ideological sucker-punch from a filmmaker who gets off on abusive relationships. He may as well have thrown a big ''whatever'' up on the screen. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Fails because of its gratuitous rape and violence and also because of its pretentious and intellectually one-dimensional grounds, which make the violence at the end feel even worse. Read full review
30
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Irreversible takes an adolescent pride in its own ugliness. “I Stand Alone" told me something about the world; this one tells me more than I want to know about the calculating mind of its maker. Read full review
25
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Maybe, you think, there is something daring and brilliant going on here: an excursion into the darkest territories of the human soul. But no. In the end -- or the beginning -- there is no point to all this. Or at least not a point worth making, and making us watch. Read full review
25
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Irreversible, though, is not a Kubrickian head trip. All Noe has come up with is a turn-on for sadists. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
Noe isn't a graceful filmmaker. He wants to traumatize his audience, barnstorm us, make us pay in anxiety and sweat and scorched nerves for the ugly truths he wants us to swallow. Read full review
20
SlateDavid Edelstein
The 12 scenes of Irreversible--each shot in a single, semi-improvised take--constitute something of a tour de force. But so would being dragged through the streets by a wire noose. Read full review
10
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
From the end to the beginning--or is it from the inadvertently ridiculous to the would-be sublime?--Noé's stunt is an exploitation movie with a gimmick, not to mention a vacuous philosophy. Read full review
0
New York PostLou Lumenick
Truthfully, it's all incredibly boring. Noé tosses in some dime-store existentialism ("Time destroys everything"), but this is a movie with not a whole lot on its mind except rank exploitation. Read full review
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