The Kennedys
ReelzChannel | Release Date: April 3, 2011
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
14
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
30
Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertMar 31, 2011
Season 1 Review: There's nothing dishy, or infuriating, or entertaining about the miniseries. It's enervating and unnecessary. Read full review
75
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardApr 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: If you can accept you're watching the Kennedy saga through the prism of the "Fringe" universe, what you will find is an absorbing, addictive drama, with some authentic performances. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesPaige WiserApr 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: The Kennedys is eight hours long, trying to strike an uncomfortable balance between high-minded and trashy. It does not succeed. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyKen TuckerMar 30, 2011
Season 1 Review: I can see why multiple networks passed on The Kennedys: not just because it's a political hot potato, but because it's a cobbled-together, mean-spirited piece of work that can't help alienating viewers, whether you venerate the Kennedys or dislike them. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraMar 31, 2011
Season 1 Review: In attempting to be both sprawling and intimate, The Kennedys winds up in a narrative no-man's land. Read full review
70
Miami HeraldGlenn GarvinApr 7, 2011
Season 1 Review: The sheer power of these stories carries The Kennedys even during the occasional stumbles that result from trying to pack 40 years of history into five and a half hours of programming. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyMar 31, 2011
Season 1 Review: Definitive history The Kennedys is not. But most of the flaws explored here mostly make the characters seem human. The series credits wins as well as losses and sends most of its characters home on a positive note. Read full review
100
New York PostLinda StasiMar 30, 2011
Season 1 Review: The miniseries--starring Greg Kinnear as JFK, Barry Pepper as Bobby, Katie Holmes as Jacqueline and Tom Wilkinson as Joseph Sr.--is without a doubt one of the best, most riveting, historically accurate dramas about a time and place in American history that has ever been done for TV. Read full review
42
NewsdayVerne GayMar 30, 2011
Season 1 Review: With material this thin, the actors can only do a competent job of mimicry. Mimicry is about all you'll get. Read full review
38
People WeeklyTom GliattoMar 29, 2011
Season 1 Review: The hot-potato miniseries dares to be unflattering. [11 Apr 2011, p.45]
40
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen GrayMar 30, 2011
Season 1 Review: Ultimately, though, The Kennedys is a high-speed chase through 30 turbulent years, punctuated by impersonations, some better than others. Read full review
40
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan StormApr 4, 2011
Season 1 Review: Except for Tom Wilkinson, who's extraordinary as Joe, most of the actors, especially poor Katie Holmes, even if she at least looks like Jackie Kennedy, seem like furniture, too. Read full review
60
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenApr 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: The Kennedys has the look and feel of a 1980s miniseries, and it's not trying to be anything more exalted. Unlike "The Borgias" and "Camelot," its reach does not exceed its grasp. Read full review
40
SlateTroy PattersonApr 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: Instead, The Kennedys is blandly admiring when paying due respect, mildly cheesy when hauling out the trash, and understaged at every turn, the better for viewers to project their own fantasies onto it. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanMar 30, 2011
Season 1 Review: Kennedys is a hamfisted mess, both slothful in its pacing and leaden in whatever underlying message was meant to be given. It's not the Kennedy family or legacy that suffers here, but the people involved in the project. Read full review
50
The New York TimesAlessandra StanleyMar 31, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's well made and also at times unnecessarily cheesy. Read full review
40
The New YorkerNancy FranklinMar 29, 2011
Season 1 Review: We come away with a new understanding of the extent of the Kennedys' dysfunction but without a sense of what made them special or of how they harnessed their talents. But what you see in Wilkinson's eyes--they're black holes, devouring everyone in sight--almost makes up for what's missing from the writing. Read full review
30
TimeJames PoniewozikApr 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: The Kennedys is also--in case anyone cares--pretty bad TV: melodramatic, rote and grim. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushApr 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's ploddingly earnest when it isn't crudely scurrilous....There is some fine acting. Read full review
75
Uncle BarkyEd BarkMar 31, 2011
Season 1 Review: Watch The Kennedys--if you haven't already had enough--and you'll instead see a compelling, well-told tale of a political dynasty with beauty marks, warts, doubts and the embedded determination to plow full steam ahead. Read full review
50
USA TodayRobert BiancoMar 31, 2011
Season 1 Review: The Kennedys has nothing much new to tell, and tells it over and over again. Read full review
30
VarietyBrian LowryMar 30, 2011
Season 1 Review: All told, the whole thing plays like a bad telenovela filtered through a "History for Dummies" text. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalDorothy RabinowitzApr 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's not likely the audience for The Kennedys will be spending much time pondering what it was about this potent, lavishly produced eight-hour miniseries airing on ReelzChannel beginning Sunday night that caused former JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen, self-described political activists like the filmmaker Robert Greenwald, and concerned others to go to so much trouble to get the project quashed. Read full review
50
Washington PostHank StueverApr 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: Owing more to its overambitious breadth of material than any overt political agenda, The Kennedys necessarily compresses, stretches, distorts and otherwise crams itself into a soap opera that is occasionally elegant and even moving near the end. Read full review
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