The Finest Hours
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: January 29, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
21
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
78
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJan 27, 2016
Carter Burwell’s score is particularly thunderous, mirroring the onscreen action, and the 3-D really is – for once – superb, making for a rather breathtaking two hours. Well done. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorFeb 14, 2016
There’s nothing subtle about The Finest Hours, but much that is satisfying. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedFeb 1, 2016
For the most part, this is a film with a pulse that wastes no time—a highly invigorating crowd pleaser that does nothing momentous but packs a big entertainment wallop doing it. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 28, 2016
One would be hard-pressed to consider The Perfect Storm “triumphant” or “uplifting” but both terms could be used to describe The Finest Hours. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJan 28, 2016
From the first gentle meeting of its hero and heroine to the last line of dialogue, The Finest Hours executes all the traditional moves beautifully. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 28, 2016
What happens is important, but more important is how it happens and whom it happens to. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 28, 2016
The script embraces certain character archetypes wholeheartedly (pig-headed crew mate; ramrod-stiff officer) and not always successfully. Yet the tone, the mood of the picture, with its desaturated color palette, maintains the right atmosphere. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 27, 2016
An adventure drama with sea legs, a story of heroism steeped in period detail, played with sympathy and stoicism by people who respect such old fashioned virtues. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJan 28, 2016
This tale of nautical derring-do has several things going for it to counteract the inherent obviousness of the material. These include a director who knows his way around this kind of material, special effects work that makes the peril fearfully alive, and a pip of a true story of what is considered as daring a rescue mission as the U.S. Coast Guard ever attempted. Read full review
70
ScreenCrushMatt SingerJan 27, 2016
If The Finest Hours is light on surprises it’s still heavy on suspense, as the script by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, and Eric Johnson treats each new obstacle in Bernie and Ray’s paths as a new brainteasing puzzle with an impossible solution. Read full review
67
ConsequenceBlake GobleJan 29, 2016
The Finest Hours is exactly that. Fine, while embracing its studio aesthetic and morally true heroism. Read full review
67
The PlaylistNick SchagerJan 26, 2016
An old-fashioned tale of heroism in the face of insurmountable odds, The Finest Hours is never less than aggressively hokey and manipulatively sentimental — and, in the end, better off for it. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickJan 28, 2016
The true story behind a Coast Guard rescue depicted in Disney’s The Finest Hours is amazing enough that it didn’t require corny romantic embellishments that threaten to capsize everything. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJan 28, 2016
Somewhere in here, there’s a pretty decent movie. The Finest Hours is probably the best of a bad bunch of recent releases. But it’s a shame that this terrific story’s engines keep flooding in the face of wave after wave of narrative inertia. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 28, 2016
It’s a movie made for the kind of audiences who feel that movies aren’t made for them anymore — you know who you are. If you go, you might want to bring a raincoat. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 28, 2016
On the waves, The Finest Hours finally finds its sea legs and delivers an old-school adventure based on a heroic deliverance that deserves its day in the sun. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenJan 28, 2016
The storm effects are first-rate, immersive all the way. The tale-telling ability of director Craig Gillespie is frustratingly inconsistent. Read full review
62
The VergeTasha RobinsonJan 29, 2016
This isn't just an action film; it's a multi-pronged assault on the heartstrings, with plenty of wide-eyed, apple-cheeked Norman Rockwell Americana saturating the pounding digital waves. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekFeb 9, 2016
As Pine’s Webber navigates that seemingly helpless little boat, squinting into the driving snow and more than once nearly falling victim to the ocean’s mighty maw, he’s the movie’s finest special effect — not because he’s mindlessly brave, but because he lets us see how scared he is. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlJan 28, 2016
Just as Pine's Bernie Webber grits his teeth and pilots his 36-foot Coast Guard boat into seas that rise up like angry gods, Gillespie steers head-on into clichés, powering through. They never quite capsize his film, but it does take on some water. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen HoldenJan 28, 2016
The Finest Hours is a moderately gripping whoosh of nostalgia that shamelessly recycles the ’50s cliché of the squeaky-clean all-American hero. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Jan 27, 2016
Despite some great effects, and one good performance, it never quite gets underway. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 27, 2016
Drama is one thing. Resonance is another. Without digging deeply enough, "The Finest Hours" seems content to capture the former while ignoring the latter. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 29, 2016
It’s not just the technique of this movie that is resolutely old-fashioned. So are its attitudes. The film may feature practically wall-to-wall monster storms but undergirding it all is a cushion of straight-arrow sentimentalism. It harks back to a rosy neverland when men were men and women stood by them. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerJan 27, 2016
As charming as the early scenes are, The Finest Hours doesn’t really come together as a love story, either, and Affleck’s scenes on the tanker are too abbreviated to really sink in as great survival drama. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJan 22, 2016
An intermittently affecting, sanded-edge adventure that feels as if it trundled off the studio production line back when Eisenhower was in office. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiJan 29, 2016
For the most part, it is a solid film that bolsters its innately compelling narrative with effectively low-key performances, some genuinely thrilling sequences and only a few moments here and there that lean towards hokeyness. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 28, 2016
The drama is almost stillborn, thanks to a slow, deadly dull romantic preface, and it’s subverted by incessant switching between spectacular struggles on the Atlantic and generic anxieties on shore. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaJan 28, 2016
The Finest Hours is set in the early '50s. But did it really need to feel like it was made during the Eisenhower era? Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittJan 28, 2016
The rescue drama The Finest Hours rocks the boat in terms of blizzard-blitzed sea thrills but leaves you cold with its side love story. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 28, 2016
It's a story told accurately, if not particularly well. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 27, 2016
The Finest Hours feels stitched together. None of the three main plot lines is particularly powerful or moving. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayJan 26, 2016
A square journey through choppy waters, it boasts a Greatest Generation nostalgia so thoroughgoing it might as well be called Boys Becoming Men. Read full review
50
Screen DailyJohn HazeltonJan 18, 2016
The climactic rescue sequence has tension and some thrills, but it’s over fairly quickly and the film settles back into a sentimental lull Read full review
50
VarietyAndrew BarkerJan 18, 2016
Perhaps the worst one could say about Craig Gillespie’s film is that, rather than their finest hours, the whole cast and crew all put in a solid shift at the office making the movie, producing a perfectly entertaining, sometimes quite well-crafted disaster drama that nonetheless retreats from the memory almost as soon as the credits roll. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenJan 18, 2016
At the helm of this ultra-earnest entertainment, with its expository dialogue and meticulous visuals, Craig Gillespie isn’t able to conjure a stirring cinematic experience. The pieces don’t fuse so much as fit together, and much of the action feels instructive rather than immersive. Read full review
50
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeJan 18, 2016
This is the sort of film in which we’re told that a certain action is impossible, until it isn’t, or that a certain thing would never happen, and then it does, so even with all those lives on the line, the movie can’t effectively build up stakes or consequences. Read full review
42
The Film StageJose SolísJan 28, 2016
While the rescue scenes are exceptionally shot, and the visual effects are quite remarkable, the predictable plot, and its tonal inconsistencies, make The Finest Hours feel like an endless cruise. Read full review
40
EmpireIan FreerFeb 15, 2016
A strong cast and impressive action sequences can’t find subtleties or surprises to enliven a rote period disaster movie. It hits the right points, but mechanically. Read full review
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