Project X
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: March 2, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
8
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerMar 1, 2012
The Oscars are swell, but once in a while a film comes along that is so courageous it deserves consideration for the Nobel Prize. An entire generation has been born and gone to college since the Beastie Boys defined that most basic of civil liberties: You've got to fight for your right to party. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 1, 2012
This game-changing instant classic will doubtless inspire imitators, onscreen and in backyards everywhere, en route to redefining what a new generation expects of its mice-will-play movies. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezFeb 29, 2012
Project X is an astounding, superlative movie about adolescence - a brutal, unapologetic comedy about the fantasy every high school kid carries around in his head about being popular and cool and beloved. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMar 2, 2012
Deeply irresponsible, this a film that will give parents seizures-and Roger Corman a big old smile. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMar 1, 2012
Project X, likewise, serves up the frat house/Spring Break/Snooki-and-Sitch-on-a-bender antics that many in the audience will have been staring at for years, and implies that it's breaking down bold new barriers of misbehavior. In the end, though, it ain't nothin' but a party. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredChristian LawNov 13, 2023
Although Project X has its faults (we’ll get there in a second), the atmosphere of the party couldn’t be more perfect. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovFeb 29, 2012
Tonally one of the strangest films of the year thus far, Project X is at heart a John Hughes-esque celebration of that fleeting teenage moment prior to actual adulthood when throwing a badass backyard party could instantaneously elevate your social status, and cement bonds of friendship that would last a lifetime, and get you laid all in one go. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 3, 2012
Project X's first-person verisimilitude is the movie's primary strength and most damning weakness. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 2, 2012
Most teen flicks just fake being fueled by anarchy. But the gut-bustingly funny Project X is the real deal. It's raunchy, reckless and ready to party. What's not to like? Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenMar 1, 2012
Judged by the usual aesthetic standards – Project X sucks. It's just another lame movie. Yet apply a different standard, the mores of our time, and you get a different verdict: Suddenly, it's a perfectly lame movie that speaks intriguingly to the way we live now. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMar 1, 2012
As a tribute for the awesome destructive power of the teenage libido, the house-party-gone-apocalyptic flick Project X is pretty compelling...Think "Girls Gone Wild" meets "Black Hawk Down." Unfortunately, it also appears to want to tell a story, with characters and things, and on that level it pretty much completely falls apart. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliMar 1, 2012
With most movies, the question for viewers is: Who should see it? With Project X, the most pressing issue is: Who shouldn't see it? Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisMar 1, 2012
The party itself is something to see. A Pasadena blowout turns into a horny, druggy, apocalyptic scene culminating in riot police, news choppers, and a gentleman with a flamethrower. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsFeb 29, 2012
It's crude in every sense: The film looks like shit, the characters are boors, and it's as sloppily put-together as the home movie it pretends to be. Project X's commitment to its crudity almost redeems it, though. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeNov 13, 2023
Project X never encounters anything you could call a plot: the party starts off badly, gets wilder and ends in total calamity. An unhealthy strain of misogyny runs through the dialogue, and the film- makers' unquestioning acceptance of high-school one-upmanship fairly turns the stomach. But the film does have a certain impure purity to it. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaFeb 29, 2012
The kind of fantasy that a 15-year-old boy would love, although parents probably should keep younger teens far, far away. This movie pushes the boundaries of its R rating about as far as they can go. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineSara Maria VizcarrondoFeb 29, 2012
The film's strength isn't its shock tactics - it's the rapid-fire, party montage editing that finds a million natural ways to put mundane actions and moments up against each other for comic effect. Read full review
30
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonMar 3, 2012
"There's a midget in the oven!" is about as inspired as the dialogue and set pieces get in this queasy-making entertainment. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleMar 2, 2012
The only way to describe this movie's trio of party-throwing protagonists is numbingly predictable, as if writers Michael Bacall and Matt Drake had "Superbad" on a loop in the background. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMar 1, 2012
Despite a couple of unconvincingly upbeat tacked-on moments at the end, Project X basically reads as nihilistic, as not believing in or standing for anything. Not even fun. Read full review
30
MovielineMichelle OrangeMar 1, 2012
A party disaster movie targeted at kids who find the "Hangover" franchise too sophisticated. Read full review
25
New York PostSara StewartMar 1, 2012
There is no way you could make this movie stupider or more pointlessly noisy than it already is. Read full review
25
USA TodayClaudia PuigMar 1, 2012
A movie about a teen party gone horribly wrong, would be every parent's worst nightmare if it weren't so inane. Read full review
20
Screen RantBen KendrickNov 13, 2023
Unlike prior "house party" movies, Project X says nothing meaningful about its subject matter, and instead paints teens as an unlikeable and, worse yet, reckless bunch of automatons that would risk injury to themselves as well as others just for a passing glance from a pretty girl. Read full review
20
CineVuePatrick GambleNov 13, 2023
What’s most repugnant about Project X is its utter lack of moral consciousness, with the overriding message being that such disregard for property and community deserves little more than a slap on the wrists – a message that couldn’t be more ill-advised in a time of such amplified social despondency. Read full review
20
NPRAndrew LapinMar 2, 2012
Project X strives to appall, and it would be similarly self-deluded to pretend this jumble of ecstasy and crotch shots is anything other than repulsive. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanMar 1, 2012
Though the central blowout is as epic as advertised, so is the movie's self-congratulatory obnoxiousness. Read full review
20
EmpireChris Hewitt (1)Feb 29, 2012
Witless, charmless, teen twaddle. Let's take all prints off the film, and bury them. Don't bother marking the spot with an X. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerMar 1, 2012
Awesomeness seems to be the chief quality prized by both the film and its characters; all other considerations--like safety, property damage, and especially good taste--are secondary. Read full review
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