Max
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: December 27, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
8
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Reveals a key aspect of fascism's cynical use of art and architecture to mesmerize a weak and vulnerable society. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A peculiar and intriguing film. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Menno Meyjes' provocative film might be called an example of the haphazardness of evil. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
In many ways, a smashing success. It's built not only on a casually clever script but on two expertly balanced performances. Read full review
80
Film ThreatClint Morris
Immerse yourself in two fantastic performers, a polished narrative (by Menno Meyjes) and a “could have happened” scenario. It plays all too real if you ask me. Read full review
80
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Fascinating story. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The result is suitably upsetting and intriguing, despite a simultaneously tacky and too-neat climax. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A flawed film but an admirable one that tries to immerse us in a world of artistic abandon and political madness and very nearly succeeds. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
An intelligent film with a sophisticated understanding of art and the significance it played in Hitler's psychology. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Scholars, psychologists, and theologians can debate the point at length, but there's no doubt that Meyjes' approach is as provocative as it is controversial. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
Pits good taste against rousing intellectual provocation, and, happily, allows both to win. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Noah Taylor does startlingly well by this role, but the conceit behind the film is a bizarre piece of wish-fulfillment. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
A historical fantasy connecting fact and wild supposition into a provocative work of fiction that poses ticklish questions about art and society. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
It challenges, this nervy oddity, like modern art should. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
In the end, the lure of the gimmick proves too much for Meyjes, clearly a writer-director of talent. If Max were half as audacious, it would be twice as good. Read full review
63
USA TodayMike Clark
The movie keeps you mildly interested all the way up to an elaborately staged final scene, yet it might give viewers the same queasy fooling-with-the-Holocaust feeling some felt for Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful." Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
This film is a philosophical musing -- a humanitarian speculation, not a drama about real people, historical figures or not, who seem fully formed. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The film is ultimately too glib in its suggestion that Hitler's discovering his career path was a matter of sheerest chance, even an accident. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
No doubt about it, the movie is morbidly fascinating. Moreover, Cusack gives a delicate and agreeably world-weary performance. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
As a ravishingly photographed, high-minded meditation on the potential of art and therapy to exorcise the vilest sort of psychological poison, it is positively riotous -- an Everest of idiocy. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
What does make the film disturbing is the way in which it positions Hitler as a mere mouthpiece for what was already in the air, a role he was convinced to play after suffering one disappointment too many at the hands of Jews like Rothman. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The whole film occupies pretty much the same continuuum -- glimmers of intelligence followed by moments of outright hysteria punctuated by bouts of sheer haplessness. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
For all its flaws, Max does propose a credible young Hitler, played by Noah Taylor as an unpleasantly opinionated, arrogantly ascetic, defensively vain autodidact with a diffident sneer and a bottomless well of grievance to draw upon. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Ultimately, Meyjes focuses too much on Max when he should be filling the screen with this tortured, dull artist and monster-in-the-making. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Suggests that had young Adolf Hitler managed to get his art show, the Holocaust might never have happened. This seems absurd, not to say insensitive. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
A serious and thoughtful movie that probably does not mean to trivialize the Holocaust and blame the victim. But it is playing with fire nevertheless. Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Quirky, unsatisfying portrait. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Just because people are objecting to Max for all the wrong reasons doesn't make it a good film, and it's not. It's a bizarre curiosity memorable mainly for the way it fritters away its potentially interesting subject matter via a banal script, unimpressive acting and indifferent direction. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Mad Max just sails off into nonsense. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
"You're an awfully hard man to like, Hitler." Few serious films could survive a line like that. Max certainly doesn't. Read full review
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