Jersey Boys
Warner Bros. | Release Date: June 20, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
24
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
New York PostLou LumenickJun 18, 2014
Jersey Boys tells a familiar story, yes — but rarely told this well and with this much heart and soul. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirJun 22, 2014
When it comes to any larger questions about what was lost or gained, and whether Frankie Valli’s odyssey was worth it, Eastwood throws up his hands. Who knows? He’s made a thoroughly tolerable and non-insulting summer movie for grown-ups; isn’t that enough? Read full review
80
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlJun 17, 2014
Eastwood may never show us his boys discovering themselves under that street lamp, but he gives us a clutch of moments worth treasuring — and mostly without overdoing it. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedJun 19, 2014
It’s a universal, American “anyone can make it” success story that has uplifting appeal onstage, and in Mr. Eastwood’s capable hands, the joy spreads like apple butter. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 19, 2014
You're in that world, sucked in by the music and the performances. Appreciate the big things, but while watching, also pay attention to the little grace notes that make up a quality production. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldChristine DolanJun 19, 2014
That built-in nostalgia is part of the reason for the success of Jersey Boys onstage and for its appeal as a movie. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChris CabinJun 19, 2014
However messy this overextended and oddly compelling work feels from moment to moment, the end result evokes the life of working artists without sentimentality or undue grandeur. Read full review
70
NPRBob MondelloJun 20, 2014
This is a special Jersey Boys universe crafted specifically for fans — among whom you can pretty clearly count Clint Eastwood. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJun 19, 2014
Eastwood, as always, has simply done things his own way, and the result is a leisurely old-school entertainment with a bit more edge than you may be expecting. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 18, 2014
Jersey Boys is a good movie, and the performances are first-rate. But Eastwood should have roughed things up a little more. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJun 22, 2014
Once the quartet makes it big, things get predictable really fast. Eastwood seems to forget that audiences made The Jersey Boys a touring sensation because they love the songs, not because they want to see yet another "Behind the Music"-style tale of fame and fortune not being all they're cracked up to be. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 19, 2014
The biggest problem is that the film, written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, never makes a convincing case for why Valli the man or the singer matters beyond the music in the way that "Ray" and "Walk the Line" did for Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 22, 2014
The film's notable quality is the music and as soon as one song is finished, we're ready for the next one. Unfortunately, there are often long passages of dialogue and narrative to endure before getting there. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 19, 2014
It's the Mob connection that allows Eastwood to add shading and a sharper edge. Read full review
63
Washington PostStephanie MerryJun 19, 2014
Fans of the play will be pleased. And for those that love the Four Seasons’ music but haven’t made it to the play, you can put your fear of missing out to rest. This is a much more affordable way to very nearly re-create the experience. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 19, 2014
Jersey Boys the movie is a different, more sedate animal than "Jersey Boys" the Broadway musical. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 19, 2014
Jersey Boys is a strange movie, and it’s a Clint Eastwood enterprise, both reasons to see it. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJun 19, 2014
As the most comfortable performer among this inexperienced cast, Walken brings a crucial maturity. In contrast, Young seems to have been hired primarily for his uncanny falsetto. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichJun 18, 2014
Imagine "Goodfellas" without much in the way of stakes, and you’ll get Clint Eastwood’s pleasingly square and forgettable adaptation of the Tony-feted 2006 jukebox musical. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerJun 16, 2014
Half "GoodFellas," half "Dreamgirls," Jersey Boys is an appealing take on a grit-to-glamour biopic. What it ultimately fails to do, though, is convince. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJun 16, 2014
A dash of showbiz pizzazz has been lost but some welcome emotional depth has been gained in the big-screen version of the still-thriving theatrical smash Jersey Boys. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 20, 2014
The sole bright spot is Christopher Walken playing a benevolent Mafia don. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJun 18, 2014
The unfortunate trade-off of Eastwood’s efficient, real-deal classical direction is his stubborn commitment to the script. Read full review
50
The PlaylistCharlie SchmidlinJun 22, 2014
Wall-to-wall fantasyland showbiz, expertly shot and boasting fine performances, but it is in the spirit world between stage and screen where it loses its footing. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 20, 2014
To be fair, some of it is good, very good. Jersey Boys has an easy, likable gait. It’s Eastwood’s most fluid film: He gets the swing of the music without fancy editing. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonJun 20, 2014
The singing talent is there, but Eastwood and writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise opt for a more realistic depiction of events. They transform Jersey Boys from jukebox musical to movie biopic, exchanging one much-maligned genre for another. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 19, 2014
For one of the few times in Eastwood’s career as a director, he seems indecisive about what kind of movie he wanted to make. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigJun 19, 2014
What was blandly charming on stage — characters addressing the audience, ultra-broad jokes and showbiz patter — feels contrived, cheesy and cliched onscreen. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 19, 2014
Whatever the cause, the movie turns sour when the singers aren't singing. And the first-person accounts don't work at all, even though much of their substance comes from the show. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJun 19, 2014
Eastwood's unvarnished storytelling style, usually his strength as a filmmaker, is terribly out of place here. If ever a movie needed flashbacks, dream sequences, any attempt no matter how cliche to goose the narrative, it's this one. Read full review
50
The DissolveTasha RobinsonJun 19, 2014
Between the high-gloss, desaturated prestige-picture look of the film and the visibly fakey soundstage sets of the Jersey boys’ hometown, Jersey Boys feels plastic and artificial throughout. There’s no sense of authentic urgency or intensity to any of it. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackJun 18, 2014
The film is fun. It could have been produced by Ross Hunter but wasn’t, maybe even directed by Vincente Minnelli, although he probably would have screwed with it a lot more. Read full review
50
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeJun 16, 2014
It works in the hits, and it casts singers who make those hits sound virtually identical to the original versions. What the movie doesn't do is answer the question, “Why did I just spend 134 minutes watching the Frankie Valli episode of ‘Behind the Music'?” Read full review
50
VarietyAndrew BarkerJun 16, 2014
As handsome as his compositions are, Eastwood’s filmmaking simply doesn’t have the snap or the feel for rhythm that the script’s rapid-fire theatrical patter requires, and the relative dearth of prominent musical performances turns what could have been a dancing-in-the-aisles romp into a bit of a slog. Read full review
42
HitfixGuy LodgeJun 17, 2014
Eastwood is rarely a careless director, even when his handling on the material is this badly fumbled, but even his typically astute command of period and place feels off here. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 23, 2014
Sparks like that are scattered through, and yet the sad fact is that Jersey Boys is a mess. Parts of it feel half-finished. Read full review
40
TimeRichard CorlissJun 19, 2014
So why is the Jersey Boys film a turgid botch? Eastwood’s résumé hints at a reason. His affinity is for American standards as improvised on piano or guitar by indigenous artists in smoky nightclubs, not for the tightly wound, impeccably pounding songs that Bob Gaudio and Bob Crewe wrote for the Four Seasons. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJun 19, 2014
Rather than embracing the jangling song-and-dance numbers that made the live version box-office catnip, Eastwood sheepishly tidies them into the background, treating the project instead like a standard music-industry biopic. Read full review
40
Film.comJordan HoffmanJun 18, 2014
Eastwood, who once upon a time was a flavorful director, is working in movie-of-the-week mode here. Cheesy, direct, bland. Read full review
40
CineVueDaniel GreenJun 17, 2014
A lacklustre, frustratingly inconsistent work of music history sugar-coating. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereJun 20, 2014
It never reaches the soaring, cloud-busting heights of Frankie Valli’s otherworldly falsetto, and it doesn’t even try. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 19, 2014
Behind the familiar hits, Jersey Boys is a story about the pressures and rewards of professionalism. Far too little of that has made it into this biopic. It’s just too mediocre to be true. Read full review
38
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJun 17, 2014
Late to the game, blandly cast and scripted with every Italian American cliche in the “How to Make Spaghetti” cookbook, it is Eastwood’s worst film as a director. Read full review
25
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJun 19, 2014
The worst thing about this multifaceted failure is the two-time Oscar winner behind the camera. Where there ought to be a director, there’s nothing but an empty chair. Read full review
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