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
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
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