Shanghai Surprise

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: August 29, 1986

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

16	METASCORE Overwhelming dislike based on 12 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Paul Katz

Some bad films become kitschy-cool with age, but Shanghai Surprise continues to rot. Read full review

Nathan Rabin

Limply, tardily trying to cash in on the success of the Indiana Jones movies. Read full review

Gene Siskel

A shockingly bad film because of its total misuse of two talented performers, Sean Penn and Madonna. [5 Sept 1986, p.A]

Bill Cosford

The film was conceived and executed as a star vehicle. Wrong stars, wrong roles, not much happening here. And for George Harrison and his Handmade Films, the first big bust. [20 Oct 1986, p.C4]

EmpireWill Lawrence

Really, really bad. Production company-destroyingly bad. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

The action is simply an implausible chain of events sensationally strung together, a Saturday morning serial formula which worked for Raiders of the Lost Ark; here, the heavy-handed manipulation of genre ingredients simply results in vulgar, often embarrassing, kitsch. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

But centerstage is the completely illogical relationship between the hustler and missionary. Penn seems game and has energy while Madonna can’t for a moment disguise that her character makes no sense at all. Read full review

Janet Maslin

One of the few things this listless bore of a film makes clear is that Mr. Penn, ever since his hilarious performance as a stoned surfer in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, has been greatly overrated. Read full review

Sheila Benson

Even better than opium for avoiding pain is avoiding Shanghai Surprise itself, a movie of jaw-dropping, high-water mark dreadfulness. Read full review

Tom Shales

Someone must have told Sean Penn and Madonna that people would come to see them in anything -- and poor fools, they believed it. "Anything" in this case amounts to nothing: Shanghai Surprise, a quintessentially misbegotten fiasco even in the year of "Under the Cherry Moon." [24 Sept 1986, p.D2]