Shaft
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: June 16, 2000 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
14
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Boston GlobeJay Carr
With Jackson leading the way, Shaft has style, punch, and street cred. It's a hot cool update. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Shaft is still enormously involving. It's popcorn, but very fresh. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
The new movie, like its predecessor, is a crime thriller with a moral viewpoint, an eye and ear for street color and a taste for macho movie fantasy. Read full review
75
USA TodayMike Clark
It's fast, easy on the eyes, full of funny putdowns and cast well enough to have two memorable villains. Read full review
75
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Shaft is what summer action flicks should be... thanks to superior writing, acting and direction. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
If nothing else, Shaft is spicy fast food. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Shaft has everything --smart writing, shrewd direction and a handful of performances that are first-rate by any standard. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Violent, cool and street-smart, Shaft supplies everything you want in a summer movie. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunAnn Hornaday
There's good trash: throwaway, intellectually undemanding action movies that, despite their heavy body counts and hard edges, are executed with a touch of class and a sunny disposition. Read full review
70
VarietyRobert Koehler
Samuel L. Jackson instantly takes the mantle from Mr. Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree, and runs with it on pure style and charisma. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Essentially works, even though the script is a mess and John Singleton's direction is often clumsy and heavy-handed to an annoying degree. Read full review
63
San Francisco ExaminerWesley Morris
The movie's primary narrative weakness is that its racism plot points seem ripped from the headlines of a "Geraldo" newsletter and stretched into a string of terribly executed car chases. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldPhoebe Flowers
It's not easy to forgive a movie that so ungratefully wastes its potential with such a poorly structured plot, but Shaft has a few redeeming moments up its sleeve after all. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Is this a good movie? Not exactly; too much of it is on automatic pilot, as it must be, to satisfy the fans of the original Shaft. Is it better than I expected? Yes. Read full review
60
TNT RoughCutSusannah Breslin
Singleton's lack of influence makes Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" look far funkier in comparison. Read full review
60
SalonCharles Taylor
Lean, fast and undeniably entertaining. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's a bad sign when audience enthusiasm peaks during the credits sequence. Read full review
60
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Shaft scores by lacing ba-da-boom action with social pertinence.
54
Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard
This avenging cat gets no action whatsoever. Neither does the movie, despite a terrific cast and a heap of street style. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
As an action flick, Shaft is clumsy out of the gate and overfond of hurtling stuntmen through windows. Read full review
50
Film.comRobert Horton
The movie itself gets scattered. Read full review
50
Film.comTom Keogh
Shaft is a decent popcorn movie and Jackson rises to the responsibility of appearing bigger than life. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
The storyline goes from bad to worse as one-dimensional characters gradually flatten out into pure stick figures, and the crime plot goes from hokey to implausible. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
(If) you're one of those killjoys who demands logic, coherence and a semblance of human life from a movie, this one will leave you cold. Read full review
50
Washington PostRita Kempley
Shaft? Not in this splashy-but-empty remake he isn't. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
As an action thriller with music by Isaac Hayes it's not bad. Read full review
40
SlateDavid Edelstein
A pretty good action flick -- twisty, marvelously acted, and energetically (if not always coherently) staged. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The main thing the new Shaft gets right is casting for the title role. It's too bad the rest of the film doesn't hold your attention the way he does. Read full review
30
TimeRichard Schickel
This is not necessarily an improvement, but it's not a total disaster either. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
This may be the first movie that runs under two hours and yet has no attention span. Characters are abandoned and picked up; narrative threads dissolve before your very eyes. Read full review
25
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The plot is a shameless plea for vigilante violence, and the dignity of the black hero is outweighed by the ethnically marked evil of his Hispanic antagonist. Beneath its crisp veneer, much of the movie is a high-energy hymn to hate. Read full review
20
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
What Jackson's Shaft can't do is talk the talk, or much of anything else, in director John Singleton's feature-length insult to one of the more cherished modern screen icons. Read full review
20
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Singleton's version is cynical and silly--one long set-up to a closing scene that promises, or threatens, a sequel. Read full review
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