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Alfie
Paramount Pictures


5.3

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 16 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for sexual content, some language and drug use

Starring Jude Law, Marisa Tomei, Susan Sarandon, Nia Long, Sienna Miller, Jane Krakowski, Omar Epps, and Graydon Carter

A stylish reinvention of the 1960's classic, Alfie is a humorous, sexy and often touching tale of a philosophical womanizer (Law) who is forced to question his seemingly carefree existence. (Paramount)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Elaine Pope Charles Shyer Bill Naughton (play and earlier screenplay)
DIRECTED BY:	Charles Shyer
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 15, 2005 Video: March 15, 2005 Theatrical: November 5, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	103 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK / USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Chicago Tribune Sid Smith

What a bright, entertaining, cleverly updated and utterly satisfying comedy the new Alfie turns out to be.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Such smooth, crisp entertainment, you barely even notice it has nothing new to say.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Law is lively and Shyer keeps the action hopping with help from the movie's original gimmick of having Alfie keep up a running monologue to the audience.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Winda Benedetti

Ultimately though, this remake doesn't stand up to the original. And it's precisely because this new Alfie is more likeable and thus less challenging.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

On its own terms, it's funny at times and finally sad and sweet.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Where Caine was like an arsonist in his relationships, Law's Alfie is more like a kid playing with matches -- innocent and genuinely surprised when things start blowing up around him. Law makes Alfie's befuddlement a surprisingly poignant thing to witness.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The comedy in Alfie is plentiful but bittersweet, and the character's bad behavior pleases more than it repels, principally because the star Jude Law's beauty and easy charm go a long way to softening the edges.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Pretty good as pretty good goes, with Jude Law turning in an efficiently chipper, if palpably less dark, performance than the one that earned Michael Caine his first Oscar nomination.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A breezy, sexy romp with a conscience that reflects in obvious but interesting ways on societal changes over the intervening 38 years.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The new Alfie is so irresistible that he hardly requires contempt. Without it, the movie is little more than a feature-length roll in the hay.

USA Today Mike Clark

Though he's highly irresponsible, this Alfie is not quite a calculating heel, which makes the material go down easier while blunting the point.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is a mixed bag - passable entertainment made palatable largely by Law, but the question of "Why?" (more than "What's it all about?") still lingers where this remake is concerned.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Law owns every scene he’s in--which is literally all of them--plus a decent supporting cast and dapper dialogue truly make for a breezy good time.

TV Guide Angel Cohn

Can't match the original's shock factor --abortion isn't the taboo subject it once was and the women of Sex and the City have helped make playing the field good, dirty fun.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

In the original, extended, unrepentant bad behavior results in bad consequences for the protagonist. In the remake, it gets the character some life lessons and a personal growth spurt.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Caine played Alfie as an incorrigible S.O.B. who at least made for good company. Law makes him a delicate boy with self-control problems who can't stop talking, and his charm runs out long before the film ends.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

This new version, which retains nearly every character and echoes nearly every scenario, is somehow its complete opposite--a slight, breezy incarnation that tries like hell to dishearten, which only makes it disingenuous.

Empire Dan Jolin

Law's slick, pretty-boy reincarnation is less icy and insensitive than Caine's wide-boy original, so we still have all the painfully confused "What's it all about?" soul-searching.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Alas, this is a remake without a reason. Alfie can no longer shock us.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The only touch of Caine's brutal sexiness is in the thrilling songs by Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart that should win Sir Mick his first Oscar. The rest is marshmallow.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The trouble with Alfie - apart from the film's existence, and the wrongheaded idea of remaking a minor classic - is that not a soul is likable.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Charles Shyer's update is a pointlessly tame romp.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Flaccid remake of a tough 1966 original.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The difference is that Michael Caine delivered the impossible; Jude Law can't.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Just a series of episodes: it has no trace of the structure that has supported drama and comedy for two millennia.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Indeed, remake hack Charles Shyer (who processed the Parent Trap and Father of the Bride updates) plays coy with most matters sexual -- an odd and puritanical approach to a character who molds his entire existence around the procurement and enjoyment of sex.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Perhaps the more appropriate question to put to this remake would be "What the hell’s the point?"

New York Post Megan Lehmann

This Alfie has been castrated.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

[Law] talks straight to the camera like the young Michael Caine, but this time our hunk has got zilch to say. That's because a bastard's candour is off-limits in today's politically correct market — it just wouldn't be polite.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

While his star, Jude Law, is infectiously watchable, Shyer's version of the material is tone deaf and splotchy.

Washington Post Sean Daly

Occasionally amusing, technically lovely but ultimately dated.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

More concerned with attitude than character and too moralistic to be much fun.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

This new Alfie is earnest -- irony is so last century -- and not angry at all, since working-class anger would mean nothing here, because class means nothing here. Nothing means anything here.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

There's nothing authentic about this London lad ... Nothing particularly likable either.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Shyer's version is a thing of infinite emptiness and nauseating vanity. It's not funny, alluring, affecting, or erotic, just conceited.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.3 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Paul D. gave it a5:
Good soundtrack and performances don't make up for shallowness of script and direction in this pointless remake.

Filmgirl gave it a10:
I didn't expect it but this was a great movie. Fun and poignant at the same time. Bravo!

Tony B. gave it a4:
This strangely unsexy film is an unnecessary remake of something that was highly overrated to begin with. The acting is good enough, but Jude Law looks too young for his last scene with Susan Sarandon to make any sense. For the most part, it is a series of vaguely related scenes which the running monologue, a gimmick that soon wears out its welcome, fails to mesh into a smooth-flowing whole. What is the point here? Are we supposed to feel sorry for our anti-hero at the end? I don't, simply because he will soon become involved on some level and in some way with the next available female who comes his way...and that's what it's really all about.

[Anonymous] gave it a3:
Very disappointing! Very drawn out with no climax!

Robert gave it a9:
Very well done movie. Tremendously interesting and different from most movies. Law's character is one of the more fascinating ones that I've seen recently - we get to see the various facets of his personality, and he's not a "good guy" or a "bad guy", as characters are all too often, he's a mix of both. Overall a very well done film.

Kirrag gave it a0:
This is easily the worst movie I've ever seen. Bad music (save Buddy Rich's "Beat Goes On"). Racist. Bad style. And none of the salacious, juicy stuff before Jude Law seeks to redeem himself; he starts to rethink his life within the first 15 mintures of the film! I wish this director just went out and bought a red corvette or Harley and spared us his mid-life crisis. This movie would have also worked better had it been a literal Vogue fashion layout the previous poster spoke of. Had I been able to casually flip thru a couple pages and be done with it, I would not be so resentful.

Dudley gave it a0:
Alf would have been better. Yuk!

Alfie Paramount Pictures

Alfie
Paramount Pictures