Seven Pounds
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: December 19, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
36
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
14
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
A movie that plays better if you know nothing about it going in. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
Now, with Seven Pounds, the transformation of Will Smith is complete: Gone is any trace of love-me impishness, replaced by one of the sourest pusses Hollywood has seen since Joaquin Phoenix got his Screen Actors Guild card. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Gripping but gap-filled Seven Pounds will have half your brain asking "How could this be?" and the other half saying, "Shut up and go along for the ride!" Listen to the latter voice. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Some people will find it emotionally manipulative. Some people like to be emotionally manipulated. I do, when it's done well. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
A spiritual successor to "The Pursuit of Happyness," but darker and more oblique. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Seven Pounds works better the more the viewer feels and the less he/she thinks. On an emotional level, one could decree that the movie is satisfying. On an intellectual level, it's disappointingly shallow. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
While it doesn't break any new ground or provide any revelations, Seven Pounds is unabashedly emotional and cautiously hopeful. It's the feel-good movie for these feel-bad times. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The film's Italian director does achieve in his second American outing a pleasing blend of Hollywood professional sheen and European sensitivity to character details and nuances. Read full review
60
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
The movie is pretty unabashed about the all-but-corny sentiment: Each of us has something to give. Read full review
60
TimeRichard Corliss
This is what lifts Seven Pounds above other Smith dramas -- he does tentatively allow another adult onto his solitary planet. Read full review
60
Film ThreatScott Mendelson
Seven Pounds is the very definition of a 'noble failure.' Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
It's a con job that feels like a precisely attenuated work of art, elegantly weaving flashbacks and ellipses into the story in an effort to conceal how shamelessly manipulative it is in the end. And as always, Smith comes out a winner. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Seven Pounds is one part jigsaw puzzle, one part "The Giving Tree" and both parts marinated in melancholy. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
The movie gets just enough right that the things it doesn't get right (beyond its overdependence on a not-so-surprising story puzzle) smack you cold in the face. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
As written, Seven Pounds would have always been a melancholy experience, but a lighter touch would have helped to keep you from noticing the implausibility of its plot. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
I'd like to make a 911 call myself: Lord, please stop this increasingly fine actor (Smith) from climbing onto another cross. Read full review
50
PremiereJenni Miller
Dawson is lovely to watch, and when Smith isn't furrowing his brow and looking concerned, he's not so bad himself. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
There's a head-pounding, gob-smacking literalness to this flick, extending from the title right through to the recurring imagery. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Seven Pounds, coming after "The Pursuit of Happyness" and "I Am Legend," seems like the third in a trilogy of inspirational bummers. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Saintliness is a heavy burden to carry, and Smith can't help but buckle a bit. He's always interesting to watch, but crafting a real person out of his cardboard character proves an impossible task. Read full review
40
EmpireIan Freer
A collage of strong scenes, dull bits, good filmmaking and a dissatisfying emotional payoff. A laudable attempt to tackle heavyweight subject-matter that ends up just being heavy weather. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Seven Pounds has a heart as big as all outdoors. Unfortunately it's made out of high-fructose bull. Read full review
38
New York PostLou Lumenick
Preposterous romantic melodrama, which uses a fractured narrative to cloud an absurd plot that would probably be laughed off the screen if it were presented in a straightforward manner. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Contrived hunk of feel-good. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
An unintentionally ludicrous drama of repentance. Read full review
25
TV Guide MagazinePerry Seibert
An insult to the intelligence of most moviegoers. Read full review
25
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The whole narrative is too hollow and rickety as well as gimmicky for Muccino to breathe much life into it. Read full review
20
VarietyTodd McCarthy
An endlessly sentimental fable about sacrifice and redemption that aims only at the heart at the expense of the head. Intricately constructed so as to infuriate anyone predominantly guided by rationality and intellect. Read full review
20
Los Angeles TimesJan Stuart
The rest of Seven Pounds feels like a half-hour "Twilight Zone" script that has been pressed onto a gob of Silly Putty and stretched to the sinking point. Read full review
10
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Mr. Smith's latest film is about nothing less than life and death, sin and atonement, and it takes the soggy cake for multiple layers of sentimentality topped by indigestible grandiosity. Read full review
10
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Overall Seven Pounds is too heavy-handed and maudlin to be comprehensible, let alone moving. The real shocker is that not even Smith can rescue it. Read full review
0
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Dispiritingly obvious and phony from top to bottom. Read full review
0
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
The most transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made. Read full review
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