Scrooged

Paramount Pictures | Release Date: November 23, 1988

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

38	METASCORE Generally unfavorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Jay Carr

Scrooged is that rarest of contemporary Hollywood phenomena -- a Christmas movie with Christmas spirit. [23 Nov 1988, p.21]

Gene Siskel

The film works very well, providing lots of laughs, in its first half, setting up the Bill Murray character and his callousness. For a Christmas Eve special he wants to staple antlers on a mouse. [25 Nov 1988, p.A]

Mick LaSalle

Scrooged doesn't pack the wallop of "A Christmas Carol" - you won't cry or walk out resolving to become a better person - but it's a funny and imaginative high-class effort. Best of all, it stars Bill Murray, who has only to raise an eyebrow to get laughs. [23 Nov 1988, p.E1]

Joe Brown

This is not a "good movie" -- in fact, it's a sprawling mess -- but I like it. And I mean that sincerely, you knucklehead. Read full review

EmpireStaff (Not Credited)

Murray doing what he does best, if you like that sort of thing. Read full review

Vincent Canby

Scrooged works in fits and starts. The mundane demands of the sentimental story keep interrupting what are, essentially, revue sketches, a few of which are hilarious. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Neither Scrooged nor Murray, who is front and center throughout, is particularly funny. Read full review

Jay Scott

In Scrooged, a sub-Saturday Night Live re-make parody of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Ghostbuster Bill Murray busts up two of the festive ghosts (Christmas Past and Future) and mugs more than Mr. Magoo. [24 Nov 1988, p.C19]

Roger Ebert

Scrooged is one of the most disquieting, unsettling films to come along in quite some time. It was obviously intended as a comedy, but there is little comic about it, and indeed the movie's overriding emotions seem to be pain and anger. Read full review

Donna Britt

Scrooged is so monumental a mess that even rabid Bill Murray fans - the ones who'll stand in line to see it despite critics' inevitable bashings - will wonder how it went so wrong. [23 Nov 1988, p. 9D]

Hal Hinson

Irony is the movie's escape hatch. It allows the filmmakers to stage maudlin bits and, at the same time, signal the audience that they're too cool to actually believe in them. Their cool is all-purpose, and it carries with it a note of genuine nastiness. They manipulate us into a sentimental response, then kick us in the teeth for buying it. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Tacky in the extreme, this self-congratulatory 1988 film is an exercise in hypocrisy, indulging every form of Christmas exploitation that it pretends to attack, and many of the laughs are forced. Read full review

Sheila Benson

Actually it's not a bad notion for a satiric comedy and this one begins well, but then veers entirely out of hand until it's as over-inflated as its own Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and as funny as a mugging. [23 Nov 1988, p.1]

Staff (Not Credited)

Scrooged is an appallingly unfunny comedy, and a vivid illustration of the fact that money can't buy you laughs. Its stocking spilling with big names and production values galore, this updating of Dickens' A Christmas Carol into the world of cutthroat network television is, one episode apart, able to generate only a few mild chuckles. Read full review