The Lovely Bones
DreamWorks SKG | Release Date: December 11, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
19
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A deplorable film with this message: If you're a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer, you have a lot to look forward to. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Ronan, however, transcends the script. She's innocent yet wise, gentle yet forceful. She's the one thing in this picture that shows how great a movie The Lovely Bones might have been, had the people who made it believed in the book with all their hearts. Read full review
38
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The result is almost suffocating: a movie that has been tinkered and fussed with until there is no spontaneity left -- no warmth or life or messiness. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
It doesn't help any that Wahlberg, looking perpetually dumbstruck, is among the clunkiest line-readers working in movies today. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
How the devastating story of the senseless murder of a 14-year-old could be stripped of emotion is a feat in itself, though one of dubious achievement. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The Lovely Bones, then, is something special: A spectacular, cringe-inducing failure as both a book adaptation and a film. Read full review
25
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
It leaves audiences in a limbo every bit as torturous as the one the protagonist is in. Read full review
20
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
In Jackson's hands, The Lovely Bones is doubly appalling. Part Disney's "Alice in Wonderland," part Fritz Lang's "M," the movie is horrific yet cloying, alternately distended and abrupt, sometimes poignant and often ridiculous. Read full review
20
SalonStephanie Zacharek
A perfect storm of a movie disaster: You've got good actors fighting a poorly conceived script, under the guidance of a director who can no longer make the distinction between imaginativeness and computer-generated effects. The result is an expensive-looking mess that fails to capture the mood, and the poetry, of its source material. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Peter Jackson siphoned out all the soulfulness that made the author's combination thriller/afterlife fantasy a best-seller. In its place is a gumball-colored potboiler that's more squalid than truly mournful. Read full review
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