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45
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71
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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65
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xx
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59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
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43
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Flash of Genius
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 15 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Phillip Railsback
Directed by: Marc Abraham
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 3, 2008
DVD: February 17, 2009
Running Time: 119 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for brief strong language
Starring Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Dermot Mulroney, Alan Alda, Bill Smitrovich, Tim Kelleher, and Jake Abel
Based on the true story of college professor and part-time inventor Robert Kearns' long battle with the U.S. automobile industry, Flash of Genius tells the tale of one man whose fight to receive recognition for his ingenuity would come at a heavy price. But this determined engineer refused to be silenced, and he took on the corporate titans in a battle that nobody thought he could win. (Universal Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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...
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
It's exhilarating in an authentic, pathos-streaked way to see Kearns, through Greg Kinnear's inspired characterization of a wary obsessive, representing himself during his trial against Ford Motor Co. for stealing his design.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
An uncompromising and ultimately chilling look at individual creativity trampled by corporate greed, and its timing could not be more appropriate.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Kearns' conflict is readable in Kinnear's every word and gesture. His performance is worth cheering.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
An enjoyable way to start the Oscar season.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Alda gives the film's strongest performance. Kinnear, often a player of light comedy, does a convincing job of making this quiet, resolute man into a giant slayer.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Kinnear does what he's done in the past: You underestimate the guy's acting chops, and suddenly, strikingly, he floors you.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
It's a smart movie for grownups, an increasingly rare commodity.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
That movie is not half bad, either. The trial, by comparison, will feel familiar to anyone who has ever watched any David take on any corporate Goliath before a court of law ("Erin Brockovich," "A Civil Action," etc., etc.).
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The individual components of director Marc Abraham's David-and-Goliath drama are roundly unexceptional; the script, soft and teach-y; the performances, earnest.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The courtroom scenes emphasize the movie's potency as a David and Goliath saga. But the film's strength lies in its fact-based story of a wronged man turned crusader, played with vigor by Kinnear.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
In short, Flash of Genius fails to make viewers care with any depth about the story it's telling.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
The flaws of Flash of Genius are worth putting up with for Kinnear's committed performance.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
The problem with Flash of Genius is that a windshield wiper is an awfully thin mechanism on which to hang a feature movie.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
It's not a lightning show, but "Flash" still shines.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
No matter how noble, not everyone's life should be made into a movie.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Reece Pendleton
The cast is excellent--especially Kinnear, who's perfected his wounded everyman persona--and Marc Abraham's direction is elegant and understated. But their work is seriously undermined by the skeletal script.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
It has the tone and texture of a well-made but forgettable television movie.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen
Wants so much to be liked, even with its prickly, difficult hero, that it misses the mark of nonobviousness necessary not only for a patent, but also for a thrilling, original work.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Maybe he was a sucker, but it was his belief in the fundamental decency of American institutions that made his struggle for redemption so winning, much more so than the movie that was made to honor it.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Peter Brunette
It's also solidly constructed throughout and the acting is impeccable. The problem is that it just lumbers along for two solid hours, never rising to any significant emotional or philosophical heights.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Moderately inspiring in the way such true-life stories of "the indomitable human spirit" are always constructed to be.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The problem with Flash of Genius isn't that the subject is dull but that the movie is.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rick Kisonak
The role is ill-suited for Kinnear's talents. Abraham's pacing is glacial, the cinematography is flat, the score by Jill Savitt is suited better to a supermarket and then there's the fact that the climax can be seen coming a mile away. Maybe the biggest, though, is its failure to play fair with the audience.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Mr. Kinnear is fine; he's an actor we always like, and he gives a skillful, heartfelt performance. The problem is the material -- dramatic in the describing but painfully predictable in the telling.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
Greg Kinnear, usually kinetic, is unusually (and unbearably) dull.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Adam L. gave it a9:
While the film may lack the novelty or high artistry necessary to earn it a "10," the beauty, focus, and superb performances of this movie make it more than worthy of a "9." The lukewarm response of many of the professional critics above is unwarranted.
Bob W gave it an8:
Not flashy, but an engrossing story with good performances. Literate, simple, and enjoyable.
Linda K. gave it a10:
Engrossing throughout. Lots of lovely, subtle things in the setting. The way Greg Kinnear played Kearns, the viewer understood why he could not quit the quest. Alan Alda surprise me because I had type cast him into being a very honorable character instead of a very practical one.
Fantasy gave it a7:
Good movie not great. GK does another outstanding job. A bit long but otherwise okay with a predictable ending.
Dennis L. gave it a9:
Doesn't deserve the tepid score. Kinnear is very good, the court room scenes are compelling, and the afterglow is quietly strong.
Mike E. gave it a4:
pretty weak. They took a terrific story line and made it boring.
Chad S. gave it a6:
The intermittent windshield wiper is his Mona Lisa; only one person painted the Mona Lisa. In another century, prior to the Italian Renaissance, Bob Kearns(Greg Kinnear) would have been considered an artist, as the distinction between artisan and artist hadn't been made yet. When Bob invented the intermittent windshield wiper, he did it independently, not by committee. During therapy, the tortured "artist" asks the doctor how'd he feel if another man's name appeared on his published books. This is the sort of question Bob should be asking the team of engineers at Ford, whose labored fruits carry the corporate logo. They're like clusterf***** Hollywood screenwriters at an arbitartion hearing before the Writers Guild of America, who rules against their claim for on-screen credit. When Bob's case is brought up before the court, he's like Arthur C. Clarke trying to get his "patent" on HAL back from MGM Studios. Blind in one eye, due to a honeymoon mishap with an errant champagne cork, Bob sounds like pioneering Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov as he describes the Kearns Blinking Eye Wiper operating under the principles of an eyelid. This inventor was like "The Man with a Cor-ko Eye" in approaching Ford; the maverick trying to woo the establishment, with the naive notion that he wouldn't be co-opted. (If Vertov came to Hollywood and worked with John Ford, he'd try to cut "The Searchers" like "Flash...dance". This Constructivist filmmaker unwittingly predicted the language of the music video.) Despite its winning story about the underdog going after "the man", "Flash of Genius" is hampered by a dramatic inertness as Bob waits for his day at court. Surely, the DaVinci of the pantograph arms(thank you, Wikipedia) attempted to paint another Mona Lisa during the interim, when he wasn't alienating his family and friends. That's the direction "Flash of Genius" should have taken, a dramatization of Bob Kearns' realization that you can't catch lightning in a bottle the second time around. Losing his Tesla girl was tough, losing his invention was tougher, but knowing that he peaked was probably the greatest source of the inventor's angst. Every artist, or artisan, fears this; the loss of creativity, having hot flashes of unimaginativity.
