The Order
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: September 5, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
21
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
0
Mixed:
4
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's "The Exorcist" warmed over. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneLoren King
Schlock that could and should have been better. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Ledger swirls his cassock glamorously, while Weller is clearly concealing cloven hoofs beneath his; Addy plays the fool and the one-note Sossamon is thoroughly annoying, as fey as Meg Tilly but without Tilly's redeeming faraway air. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyJon Strickland
All the fine cinematography -- lots of beating wings and impossibly large dust motes floating through slanting beams of sunlight -- can't hide the sad fact that the second half of the film delivers none of the shocks and starts required of atmospheric horror. Read full review
38
PremierePeter Debruge
With its ho-hum hero and lackluster love story, The Order would likely be one big implausible bore if it wasn't for production designer Miljen Kreka Kljakovic. Read full review
30
VarietyAndy Klein
Commits the first cardinal sin of cinematic horror -- it's boring and doesn't have a single scary moment. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
Cast adrift with vague, improbable characters and a plot that's at once under-and overcooked, the actors struggle to find a steady tone, lurching from somber to silly as the director tries to figure out what he's doing. Read full review
30
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
The pseudo-mystical nonsense in Brian Helgeland's supernatural thriller far outweighs its scare factor. Read full review
25
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Certainly a dark spirit is hovering over this inane production. Something has sucked the life out of it. Read full review
25
New York PostJonathan Foreman
The screenplay is packed with so many hilariously bad lines (it's hard to believe that writer-director Helgeland won an Oscar for co-writing "L.A. Confidential") that the movie would be perfect material for a resurrected version of the TV spoof "Mystery Science Theater." Read full review
20
The New York TimesStephen Holden
A murky ecclesiastical horror film, may be the nadir of the subgenre that produced "The Exorcist" (at its high end) and "Stigmata" (at its middle-to-low end). Read full review
20
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
Godawful mess. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
It's no wonder that the film's strongest sequence, visually and dramatically, involves none of these characters. It's a flashback to the construction of St. Peter's that explains the origins of Eden's centuries-long reign on his dark throne. Read full review
12
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
A stupendous bore. Read full review
10
Village VoiceDavid Ng
This ghost-in-the-Vatican thriller regurgitates enough occult clichés to deserve its own special circle of hell. Read full review
10
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
A supernatural religious thriller so awful it should result in the retroactive forfeiture of the Oscar writer, director, and producer Brian Helgeland won for co-writing "L.A. Confidential." Read full review
0
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The picture is so lethargic that I began to think of watching it as a form of atonement. Read full review
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21 Critic Reviews

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