The Majestic

Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: December 21, 2001

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

27	METASCORE Generally unfavorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Roger Ebert

It tells a full story with three acts, it introduces characters we get to know and care about, and it has something it passionately wants to say. Read full review

William Arnold

Marks a surprising maturity, restraint and confidence to Carrey's acting. Even more than "The Truman Show," he plays it perfectly straight here, and his natural charisma carries the movie with just the right dose of Jimmy Stewart charm. Read full review

Heather Wadowski

For those who appreciate movies that capture almost every emotion -- from laughter to tears, suspense to tranquillity -- The Majestic was made for you. Read full review

Bob Graham

Channels the spirit of Frank Capra in this serio-sentimental fable about a man who loses his memory but finds his soul. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

A real sentimental journey -- and luckily they've got both the right director (Darabont) and the right actor to squeeze our heartstrings.

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Maybe this well-loved Luke is who his neighbors want him to be, a good fellow who, with his father, reopens the old movie house in town -- the Majestic -- thus allowing his neighbors to dream in the dark again. Read full review

Jay Carr

A sweet, visually handsome sermon, but it's too dramatically bland to convert even the converted.

Claudia Puig

A pale imitation that challenges credulity and tries too hard to win our hearts with schmaltz. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

Darabont and Sloane stumble consistently and fall into the abyss. Read full review

Carrie Rickey

If only I liked The Majestic half as much as I liked Carrey in it. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

That Carrey, who's a bit old for the part, always seems one facial muscle away from a smirk doesn't help matters. Read full review

Jack Mathews

Has sentimental goo oozing from its opening frame, and the gunk gets so thick so fast, it's a wonder the projector doesn't freeze before the molasses-strapped finale. Read full review

Richard Corliss

The story has to carry way too much weight, as war remorse battles McCarthyism. The Majestic's makers don't get what made Capra movies invigorating.

Lou Lumenick

Might have been more successful if Darabont and his pal had attempted a Preston Sturges-like farce. Instead, it's played totally without any kind of edge - a fantasy that makes "The Lord of the Rings" look realistic by comparison. Read full review

Desson Thomson

It's too manufactured and deliberate to be persuasive. Read full review

A.O. Scott

The most indolent waste of screen time since Andy Warhol's marathon shot of the Empire State Building. Read full review

Michael Sragow

The indisputably gifted Jim Carrey shows the side of him that just wants to be loved - the Riddler on Ritalin, the Mask unmasked. And it turns out to be stultifying. Read full review

David Sterritt

The film tries to revive the sort of good-hearted optimism associated with Frank Capra classics of the 1940s era, but pictures like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" were never so simplistic, syrupy, or tedious to sit through. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

Winds up suffocating you with its aura of bogus, store-bought nostalgia.

Kenneth Turan

The Majestic isn't. Rather it's "The Film That Wasn't There," a derivative, self-satisfied fable that couldn't be more treacly and simple-minded if it tried. And it tries, oh, how it tries. Read full review

David Ansen

I staggered out of this shameless, interminable movie feeling as if I'd been force-fed a ton of mealy, artificially sweetened baby food.

J. Hoberman

A mishmash of life-insurance commercials and Ronald Reagan campaign spots, this sexless orgy of self-congratulation is designed to make you feel good about Hollywood, America, and Jim Carrey -- not to mention the nation's motion picture exhibitors, who are praised at one point as the antithesis of Soviet Communism. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

A thick slice of bogus inspirational cheese that only makes itself look bad by recycling so many golden movie memories. Read full review

David Denby

Carrey, unable to pretzel himself in this role, has to do a normal job of characterization, but he never fills in the blank spaces in Peter Appleton. [28 Jan 2002, p. 90]

Jonathan Rosenbaum

When nostalgia, hypocrisy, and indifference to history converge in the kind of shameless Capracorn manufactured here, one can either be stupefied by the filmmakers' cynicism or fall for the package hook, line, and sinker. Read full review

Stephen Hunter

It can't fake sincerity. It tries ever so hard, but it doesn't have a single believable second. Every word in it is a lie. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

May just be the most boring movie ever made; certainly it's the most boring movie I've suffered through to the bitter end. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Andy Klein

Indeed, the best that can be said about The Majestic is that it may boost Capra's reputation by virtue of comparison. Apparently, it's not so easy to weave that kind of magic. Read full review

Joe Morgenstern

The worst would-be-big-and-Capraesque-but-actually-bloated-and-bloviating-beyond-belief movie of the year.

Charles Taylor

One of those movies that makes you feel as if the national IQ was dropping while you're watching it. It's the return of all the homiletic clichés about an America that never existed. Read full review