Second Act
STX Entertainment | Release Date: December 21, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
16
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Chandler LevackDec 20, 2018
The film feels as finely tailored to J. Lo as the booty-enhancing pencil skirts she wears throughout the movie: Second Act’s Maya from Queens is our Jenny from the Block. Read full review
75
Original-CinKim HughesDec 20, 2018
If you are someone inclined to head to the theatre specifically to see the new Jennifer Lopez rom-com, you will get exactly the movie you hope for. And you will be happy. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattDec 20, 2018
What’s fun is just watching Lopez and her supporting cast — including her real-life best friend Remini, Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford as her tightly wound coworker, and a loopy Charlyne Yi as her phobic new assistant — move through the scenes so easily. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanDec 20, 2018
Even though Second Act shouldn’t work, it does (sort of). It’s got flow, a certain knowing ticky-tackiness about its own contrivances. You know you’re watching a connect-the-dots comedy, but the dots sparkle. And Lopez gives her first star performance in a while. Age has enriched her talent; she brings curlicues of experience to every scene. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldDec 20, 2018
It isn’t “Working Girl” — Second Act is more earnest and less funny — but it’s a pleasant enough diversion, helped along immensely by Lopez’s warm screen presence and by a first-rate Sassy Best Friend performance by Leah Remini. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 24, 2019
For all the film’s fumbled shortcuts, air of semi-intentional Nineties-ness, and the completely mad bit with a stray flight of doves, it jollies along with some amiability. Read full review
60
EmpireBeth WebbJan 1, 2019
If you’re not fond of Lopez’s soapier films (hello Maid In Manhattan) this might make for queasy watching, but stick with Second Act for its smart reframing of a city Cinderella story that retains its sense of humour. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicSamantha IncorvaiaDec 20, 2018
It's clear this movie is for a certain audience, but at least the film embraces its genre and the jokes stick the landing. It's definitely worth a watch for fans of movies with an early 2000s rom-com aesthetic. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubCaroline SiedeDec 20, 2018
Lopez gets a decent scene partner in Hudgens and an even better one in Leah Remini, who steals the movie as Maya’s brassy, no-nonsense best friend. Read full review
58
IndieWireKate ErblandDec 20, 2018
Second Act never recovers from its big reveal, a cataclysmic (and nearly catastrophic) piece of narrative nuttiness that derails every scene, every performance, every subsequent revelation. Read full review
55
TheWrapYolanda MachadoDec 20, 2018
It feels like a confused puppy, caught between a stale script and a very confused storyline that frequently loses focus. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 1, 2019
But so much of the humor and so many of the situations in Second Act feel like warmed-over Second Helpings of a dinner from long ago...A dinner that wasn’t all that memorable in the first place. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comNell MinowDec 21, 2018
A mishmash that has as much of an identity crisis as its name-switching, past-hiding, resume-inflating main character. Perhaps there is a clue in the credits, where we learn that Lopez is the producer as well as the star. As is so often the case, here that means that the movie is more about what would be fun for Lopez to do than what would be fun for the audience to watch. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenDec 20, 2018
The movie is all over the place and there is no attempt to weave it into a coherent whole — which is regrettable as scene for scene it often works. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 20, 2018
You wouldn’t be wrong if you’re thinking this wish-fulfillment tale of a working-class woman bum-rushing the corporate world is trying to be a "Working Girl" for millennials. And while it can’t deliver the boundary-pushing kick of that seminal 1988 Melanie Griffith-vs.-the glass ceiling smash, the charms this movie does possess — its star being chief among them — will get you over the gaping plot holes and lackluster dialogue. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 20, 2018
Good cast, nearly hopeless script. Read full review
50
The New York TimesWesley MorrisDec 19, 2018
This is Jenny from the blah. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 19, 2018
So, there you have it, a bad good movie, or a good bad movie, but a very decent Jennifer Lopez movie. Read full review
45
Vanity FairRichard LawsonJan 10, 2019
Second Act is a kitchen-sink drama that goes for surprise over real seriousness. It’s a Jennifer Lopez vehicle, and thus still worth a look. But Second Act’s second act proves pretty hard to follow. Read full review
40
Time OutAbbey BenderDec 20, 2018
Second Act is an aspirational Pinterest board of a film, too bland to make an impression. If only the world saw street smarts as equal to book smarts, Maya wishes on her birthday. It’s a nice idea, but Second Act doesn’t possess smarts in either category. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaDec 20, 2018
The contemporary nostalgia for romantic comedies is understandable (even if I do not personally share it), as is the nostalgia for Jennifer Lopez, movie star. Unfortunately, Second Act is a strange, scattered attempt to cash in on that longing, and it doesn’t seem to know what its own deal is aside from a rushed vision board collage of Things Women Are Probably Worried About. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 21, 2018
I didn’t hate this, which is faint praise, I know. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterKeith UhlichDec 20, 2018
If there are any dadaist cinephiles out there, perhaps they can reclaim Second Act as a multilayered masterpiece of illogic. Certainly the film seems destined to survive all future nuclear winters, enduring as a time capsule of humanity at its most pitiably pedestrian. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineDerek SmithDec 20, 2018
A blatantly telegraphed mid-film twist helps turn Second Act into one of the strangest and most misguided rom-coms of any year. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 24, 2019
A truly terrible Working Girl knock-off. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJan 4, 2019
Granted, it's breezy enough in a retro-chic kind of way, but the meh factor is too high to overcome for all but the hardiest of J-Lo die-hards. Read full review
0
ObserverRex ReedDec 20, 2018
Jennifer Lopez can’t act, the meatheads responsible for the stupidest screenplay of the year can’t write, and I don’t know anybody with one hour and 43 minutes to waste in a busy holiday season, so a cinematic disaster called Second Act has nothing to recommend it, even as a temporary refuge from traffic gridlock. Read full review
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