Knight of Cups
Broad Green Pictures | Release Date: March 4, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
24
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Total FilmJamie GrahamMay 4, 2016
This is Malick turning graceful, ever-decreasing circles, though there’s a thrill to seeing him traverse hotel rooms and studio lots, nightclubs and strip clubs, after a career wrapped up in the period and pastoral. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 7, 2016
There are treasures in Knight of Cups. It’s worth seeing just for the underwater shots of dogs as they plunge, mouths laughingly agape, into a pool to grab a tennis ball. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonDave CalhounFeb 8, 2015
Let’s not kid ourselves: cast-iron interpretations of Malick’s recent filmmaking are risky. It’s also a matter of taste. You either slip into the pretty, dreamlike, wistful groove of his later films or you don’t, and even hardened arthouse film lovers may find Knight of Cups way out of their comfort zone. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 8, 2015
Whatever Muse drives Malick, whose best work feels both found – in the sense of discovered in the shoot and edit – and profound, he could be accused of cheating on her in Knight of Cups, leapfrogging between unsatisfactory short-term conquests. His career is quite a journey, but this episode has an empty tank. Read full review
60
CineVuePatrick GambleFeb 8, 2015
Each scene is presented like a taro card for the viewer to assign his or her own meaning. Occasionally this can lead to a profound and deeply personal connection to the film whilst at others it can feel like Malick is overreaching; with large swaths of the narrative washing over you like an agreeable summer's breeze. Read full review
58
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerMar 5, 2016
There’s a note of reflexive, self-aware irony to it, but portions of Knight of Cups feels as though they’re indulging in precisely this same kind of early-college navel-gazing. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 16, 2016
Knight of Cups is a ponderous affair, never taking 30 seconds to make a point when four minutes is available. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 10, 2016
I'm all for directors making audiences think, but ultimately, those thoughts need to lead us somewhere. "To the Wonder" didn't, to my mind. I'm not sure Knight of Cups does, either. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 10, 2016
Lubezki is arguably this movie’s secret star, and he invests the movie’s Los Angeles settings with the strangeness and newness of a NASA rover traveling across Mars. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMar 10, 2016
This is the kind of film that makes moviegoers long for good, old-fashioned storytelling. Read full review
50
The VergeBryan BishopMar 9, 2016
Filled with flashes of visual beauty and a fistful of interesting ideas, Knight of Cups is — like much of Malick’s most recent work — something that asks to be experienced rather than understood, but by pushing his experimental inclinations further than ever before, he’s ended up with something that’s strangely bereft of poetry or emotional resonance, resulting in a movie that may be off-putting to all but the most ardent Malick die-hards. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 5, 2016
For loyal Malick fans, the woozy dream-logic visuals here may be enough. But this director is hardly the perceptive student of human nature he’s cracked up to be. He understands so little about women – and even less about our shoes. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMar 4, 2016
Knight of Cups isn’t quite as fancy-flimsy as “To the Wonder,” which, as I remember it, consisted mostly of Ben Affleck gazing dazedly at wave formations, but it’s close enough. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 3, 2016
In Knight of Cups, as in “To the Wonder,” the deployment of beauty strikes me as more evasive than evocative. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 3, 2016
Must all films about alienation be themselves alienating? Take a walk on the beach and ponder that one. There's a line between artful and arty, and Malick has crossed it. Read full review
50
TheWrapRobert AbeleMar 2, 2016
It’s the movie equivalent of a multi-course banquet of colorful foams: wisps of flavor emerge here and there, and admiration reigns, but in the end you’re unlikely to believe you’ve actually had a meal. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 8, 2015
Malick's most distinctive ambition here is his attempt to create an almost pointilistic portrait of a man by evoking acute moments of his past and present, and this sustains real interest for a while, as you wait to see how it all might come together. But as the film just keeps offering more of the same...it doesn't build or pay off with what it seems designed to do, which is to provide either a dramatic or philosophical apotheosis. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyKevin P. SullivanMar 2, 2016
Essentially shapeless and paced like the tide rolling in, Knight of Cups should be reserved for hardcore Malick fans only, those who have the patience to metaphorically wade through the literal wading, which there happens to be a lot of in this movie. Read full review
40
EmpirePhil de SemlyenMay 4, 2016
Terrence Malick’s Hollywood tale is a frustratingly fleeting experience, a sleepwalk through Tinseltown that beguiles you with its visual artistry but leaves only the faintest of impressions when the curtain falls. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMar 16, 2016
There’s no denying the poetry at work in his film, but so much of it is inchoate and fundamentally sexualized that it becomes more of a turn-off than a turn-on. Malick’s Cups is ultimately half-full. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 4, 2016
He has told the story of humanity’s fall from grace so many times that you wonder if his wand is starting to sputter. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 3, 2016
The only thing that keeps Knight of Cups from terminal artistic overreach as it follows Rick around town is the knockout cinematography of three-time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki, who does superb work showing us contemporary Los Angeles in a most magical way. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe DziemianowiczMar 2, 2016
It’s visually sumptuous but laborious. Worse, it’s pretty humorless. Knight of Cups takes itself very seriously. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 8, 2015
There are moments of visual brilliance here, moments of reverence and even grandeur. He is always distinctive, and anything he does must be of interest. But his style is stagnating into mannerism, cliche and self-parody. Read full review
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