Legend
Universal Pictures | Release Date: November 20, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
15
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamSep 8, 2015
It’s flawed, yes – Frances is frustratingly underwritten, her psychological fault lines spoken of but never shown – but it’s also swaggeringly cinematic. And it has Tom Hardy vs Tom Hardy. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinSep 8, 2015
Helgeland’s savvy new take on this well-known story proves that crime can pay, while Hardy is astonishing and magnetic in two truly towering performances. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 3, 2015
In what is surely his finest hour, Tom Hardy plays both brothers. Much more than a gimmick, it’s like watching one side of a mind wrestle with the other – literally, in one explosive, fun-to-unpick fight scene. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 8, 2015
Tom Hardy manages the brilliant trick of playing two physically, emotionally and intellectually distinct mobster brothers in Legend. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyKevin P. SullivanNov 18, 2015
The film’s saving grace is Hardy, who is as ferocious and watchable as ever, acting smooth and brooding as Reggie and unhinged as Ronnie. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 19, 2015
Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy are the reasons to see Legend. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlNov 17, 2015
Legend reminds us how easily a pretty star can get us to feel for people we'd deplore in real life — a monster's a monster, no matter how big its heart or soulful its strut. Read full review
70
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 3, 2015
For all Hardy’s expressive detail and physical creativity, Helgeland’s chewy, incident-packed script offers little insight into what made either of these contrasting psychopaths tick, or finally explode. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayNov 18, 2015
When the two Krays are in the same room, circling each other with a mix of fraternal affection and deep loathing, Legend is as heady and unforgettable as it means to be. The rest of the time, it’s a movie with a lot of good points, but no connecting line. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 25, 2015
The good news: Hardy creates two memorable characters, making some bold and always entertaining if not entirely successful choices. The bad news: Somehow, the fictionalized version of the terrifying, violent and twisted Krays manages to be pedestrian and derivative for long stretches. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 24, 2015
Legend is more than a gimmick, but not quite enough. The movie’s a testament to the Krays’ ability to get away with everything — for a while, anyway. But it’s better evidence of Tom Hardy’s ability to do just about anything. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonNov 24, 2015
Working from his own screenplay, director Brian Helgeland clearly has a feel for the Krays’ criminal milieu, but it’s not long before repetition sets in. There’s only so much brutality that even the most bloodthirsty audience can tolerate. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 19, 2015
Helgeland's script is hit-and-miss, not on the Oscar-winning level of his L.A. Confidential. Still, Hardy is a show all by himself, an actor flying without a net and having a ball. You will too. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriNov 21, 2015
Hardy, it seems, is an ecosystem of love and hate and betrayal and madness unto himself. The rest of Legend just can’t keep up. Read full review
60
CineVueJoe WalshSep 8, 2015
Legend crucially lacks almost any sense of gravitas, although the bold and brash approach does keep you entertained. Read full review
60
The TelegraphHelen O'HaraSep 3, 2015
While he arguably fails to rein in his leading man (or half of him), screenwriter-turned-director Helgeland has a light touch, leavening the ultra-violence – and there are gory scenes – with a flair for absurdity. Read full review
60
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 3, 2015
It’s easy to buy Hardy’s dual performance, and it doesn’t get in the way of the film – although some actor-ly exuberance in the delivery of Ronnie can sound an off-note, with Hardy using some facial prosthetics around the jaw line which aren’t particularly subtle. Read full review
58
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonSep 9, 2015
It’s worth the price of admission just to see Hardy’s Reggie performance, which is up among his best work. Still, the story could have perhaps used a more inspired hand at the helm. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 3, 2015
Legend seems like a movie Scorsese might have made if he wasn’t paying attention - the elements are present but they are clumsily assembled and the outcome underwhelms. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanNov 24, 2015
Hardy is extraordinarily good at evoking the fraught fraternal connection between the Krays.... But the film is ultimately unable to plumb the Krays’ deepest souls, if they even have any. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianJeff BakerNov 24, 2015
Legend offers two Hardys for the price of one but delivers less than a satisfying whole despite the efforts of its star(s). Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesNov 24, 2015
Mostly Legend just lurches. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenNov 19, 2015
As told by Helgeland this Legend simply isn't memorable, because a tremendous effort by Hardy is let down by unfocused storytelling. Read full review
50
TheWrapRobert AbeleNov 19, 2015
Hardy’s virtuosity saves the picture’s artificiality at nearly every turn. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedNov 18, 2015
The script may be flawed and the narrative storytelling mechanical, but the period details are fascinating, the camerawork swaggers across a maze of squalid row houses and nightclub floors with visual velocity, and whenever either one Tom Hardy (or both) is onscreen, Legend is engrossing stuff indeed. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 16, 2015
The movie was written and directed by Brian Helgeland, whose screenplay for “L.A. Confidential” (1997) won an Oscar — deservedly so, for the skein of plot required a steady hand. Legend, by contrast, pummels us into believing that it has a plot, where none exists. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 3, 2015
It’s a disappointingly shallow take on a fascinating period of time and leaves us sorely uninformed, as if we’ve skim-read a pamphlet. The legend might live on but Legend certainly won’t. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinSep 3, 2015
This ungainly portrait strikes a lot of poses, as if inviting the viewer to admire its impressive cast list, fine period detailing, "cheeky" British humor, and insouciant attitude towards violence. But none of it disguises the fact that the film is also tonally incoherent, vacuous and structurally a bleedin' mess. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyNov 19, 2015
Such a muddle right off the bat. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaNov 18, 2015
Given how Legend's script is so bereft of insight into its characters' psyches, perhaps there's only so much even an actor of Tom Hardy's stature can do. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 24, 2015
To take such a subject and render it without focus, interest, or joy—to make a long, dull movie from it — qualified as some perverse sort of achievement. Read full review
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