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Envy
DreamWorks Distribution LLC


4.8

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 18 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for language and sexual/crude humor

Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Rachel Weisz, Amy Poehler, Christopher Walken, Ariel Gade, Sam Lerner, and Lily Jackson

Tim (Stiller) and Nick (Black) are best friends, neighbors and co-workers, whose equal footing is suddenly tripped up when one of Nick's harebrained get-rich-quick schemes actually succeeds: Vapoorizer, a spray that literally makes dog poop, or any other kind for that matter, evaporate into thin air. Tim, who had poo-pooed Nick's idea and passed on an opportunity to get in on the deal, can only watch as Nick's fortune -- and Tim's own envy -- grow to equally outrageous proportions. (DreamWorks)

GENRE(S):	Comedy
WRITTEN BY:	Steve Adams
DIRECTED BY:	Barry Levinson
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 28, 2004 Video: September 28, 2004 Theatrical: April 30, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	99 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	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...

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The movie works fairly well as a pitch-dark comedy, and very well as a dead-on satire of upward mobility and its discontents.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Quirky and enjoyable.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

It may not feature the funniest performances Stiller, Walken and Black have ever given but, these three guys giving performances just this funny is enough to make Envy a movie you'll end up kicking yourself for missing.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

One of those cinematic curiosities that almost always fade quickly, but that will usually find a devoted cult audience once it hits that peculiar Elysian Field known as the aftermarket.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

The laughs tend to come in fits and starts, built around individual set pieces rather than being generated organically out of the storytelling.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Envy is in the unenviable position of saddling two of Hollywood's most talented comic actors with a script that doesn't do them justice.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Envy is such an ugly emotion, perhaps it deserves an ugly movie. Barry Levinson's Envy fills the bill - a mean-spirited black comedy saturated with dog-poo jokes and only intermittent yowls of mirth.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Black somehow feels reigned in; shaved and barbered, he's lost his anarchic passion and is merely playing a comic role instead of transforming it into a personal mission.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

[Walken's] every minute on screen is filled with that level of jittery invention, and, watching him at play, not even the flintiest temper could resist a wide grin. Envy can surely be a trial, but Saint Christopher is there to ease our troubled journey and see us smilingly home.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Levinson, who has directed enough films to know better, should recognize a stinker of a script when he smells one: Instead clever laughs he serves up sloppy schtick, dead spots filled with lame ad-libbing and Walken crooning "The Happy Wanderer."

LA Weekly John Patterson

Even the relatively successful pairing of neckless maestro of anxiety Stiller with the indomitably effervescent Black gets bogged down by Steve Adams' aimless screenplay. Would the Barry Levinson who once made "Diner" please wake up and pull himself together?

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Ultimately more amusing than hilarious, and sometimes less than that.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

A woeful little comedy that runs out of steam shortly after its opening sequence.

Variety Robert Koehler

Can't decide whether to be an eccentric black comedy or a middle-of-the-road diversion.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Envy is a shaggy dog-poop story that'll make you wish you could spray something at the screen to make it disappear.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Envy makes a pretty entertaining three-minute trailer. If only they'd left it at that.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

There are a few chuckles here and there, and there are odd wisps of cleverness in the script by Steve Adams, but for the most part, Envy is a film that doesn't know where it's going.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Squandered in foolish horseplay and on a story that zigzags so far out of control that it feels as if the screenwriter, Steve Adams, pasted together a bunch of zany notions in a frantic search for confusion.

Washington Post Sara Gebhardt

With all the dog dung in Envy, it's almost too easy to generalize that it stinks. But it does, unfortunately, despite the big-name actors in its cast.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

With so many dubious elements at play, even the half-good ideas get lost in the shuffle.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

The most telling symptom of bad comedy is pretty easy to diagnose: no laughs.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Environmentalists are up in arms. "Where did the shit go?" they want to know. The answer is painfully obvious: into the screenplay.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Leaves you with the dismaying sensation that Levinson, who should probably be off making his own version of ''The Player,'' has instead crafted a comedy of self-loathing, burying himself in a movie that deserves to be Vapoorized.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's remarkably appropriate that Envy is about turds, because that's what the movie is.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The film is neither fish nor fowl nor some arresting new entity, but a lumpish coagulation of conflicting impulses and unrealized gestures.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Envy feels like a comedy in search of a drama in search of some sort of lugubrious existential meaning; it never quite seems to know where it's going to head next, and neither will the audience.

Empire Jo Berry

You'd think it'd be hilarious. Think again.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Stiller and Black have the chemistry of fingernails-on-blackboard and the movie is disastrously unfunny.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A weirdly airless disaster, a turkey so insistently DOA that the dialogue serves as its own epitaph.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

In short, every element suggests Envy ought to be amusing, but the only comparably disastrous movie in recent memory involves Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, and a rapping retarded man.

The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Matthew R. gave it an8:
The people that rate these movies have nothing better to do! This movie is way better than all those idiotic "gangsta movies."

Bilbo gave it a9:
How can you give this movie 31 I thought the plot of this movie was quite well planed out. Also both Jack Black did some very nice acting in this movie.

Sam gave it a7:
Jack Black and Ben Stiller are capable of being VERY funny, and in Envy they are, but it doesn't really introdouce to the ignorant their true genius.

Kyle K.. gave it a10:
Wow...that's all I can say really. This is one of those perfect movies. PERFECT 10. By far. OMO!

[Anonymous] gave it a7:
OK - Citizen Kane it's not, but this was an enjoyable movie. While I think the movie was short on plot, the performances made up for it. If you like that kind of humor, you'll like the movie. If not, you'll hate it. I liked it.

Captain Craig gave it a5:
Not the best film either star has done. But, enertaining in a rediculous kind of way.

Michael M. gave it a 4:
"Envy" is not a good film. It isn't a terrible movie, just nothing worth remembering. Even the strong comic duo of Ben Stiller (Meet the Parents, Zoolander) and Jack Black (School of Rock, High Fidelity) can't save this jumbled mess from tediousness. I'm not going to lie, the film has a few hard laughs, but that's it. The plot really stinks, and a lot of issues don't come together at the end. Watch for a hilarious performance by Christopher Walken as well ... a creepy guy. Wait to rent this one on DVD, trust me. It's not worth the nine bucks!

Envy DreamWorks Distribution LLC

Envy
DreamWorks Distribution LLC