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The Majestic

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

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

27	METASCORE Generally unfavorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

38

New York Post

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

30

Washington Post

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

30

The New York Times

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

25

Baltimore Sun

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

25

Christian Science Monitor

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

25

Miami Herald

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

20

Los Angeles Times

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

20

Newsweek

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

20

Village Voice

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

20

Variety

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

20

The New Yorker

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]

20

Chicago Reader

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

10

Washington Post

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

10

L.A. Weekly

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

10

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

10

Wall Street Journal

Joe Morgenstern

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

10

Salon

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

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