CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games Books TV
Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

97 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83 Alexandra
43 Anamorph
35 Babysitters, The
32 Backseat
80 Band's Visit, The
62 Battle for Haditha
47 Bella
63 Blind Mountain
71 Blindsight
47 Boarding Gate
63 Body of War
58 Bra Boys
70 Caramel
54 Cashback
44 Chaos Theory
32 Chapter 27
69 Chicago 10
82 Chop Shop
46 CJ7
78 Counterfeiters, The
30 Cover
48 Dark Matter
35 Deal
61 Dhamma Brothers, The
92 Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
20 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58 Fall, The
43 Favor, The
58 First Saturday in May, The
57 Flawless
87 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx From Within
44 Frontier(s)
59 Fugitive Pieces
41 Funny Games
66 George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61 Girls Rock!
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57 Grand, The
58 Hats Off
68 Honeydripper
xx Jack and Jill vs. the World
67 Jellyfish
xx Kiss the Bride
37 Life Before Her Eyes, The
72 Life of Reilly, The
50 Look
65 Married Life
35 Meet Bill
63 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
54 Mister Lonely
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
52 Noise
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
55 Pathology
48 Penelope
90 Persepolis
62 Planet B-Boy
xx Plumm Summer, A
67 Praying with Lior
46 Previous Engagement, A
72 Priceless
17 Prom Night
69 Redbelt
72 Roman de gare
48 Run, Fat Boy, Run
85 Savages, The
24 Sex and Death 101
66 Shelter
75 Shotgun Stories
40 Sleepwalking
67 Snow Angels
64 Son of Rambow
71 Standard Operating Procedure
76 Stuff and Dough
64 Surfwise
xx Tashan
82 Taxi to the Dark Side
57 Teeth
56 Then She Found Me
55 Tracey Fragments, The
56 Turn the River
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
59 Under the Same Moon
76 Unforeseen, The
xx Unsettled
91 Up the Yangtze
55 Vice
79 Visitor, The
64 Water Lilies
45 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57 Without the King
74 Witnesses, The
63 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.



From Hell
20th Century Fox Film Corporation

From Hell reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 54 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.7 out of 10
based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 18 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for strong violence/gore, sexuality, language and drug content

Starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, Robbie Coltrane, Susan Lynch, and Ian Richardson

Based on a popular graphic novel, From Hell puts an intense psychological spin on the horrific legend of Jack the Ripper and unravels a chilling alleged conspiracy involving the highest powers in England. (Twentieth Century Fox)


GENRE(S): Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Terry Hayes
Rafael Yglesias
Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell (comic book series)
 
DIRECTED BY: Albert Hughes
Allen Hughes
 
RELEASE DATE: DVD: May 14, 2002 
Video: May 14, 2002 
Theatrical: October 19, 2001 
RUNNING TIME: 137 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Czech Republic / USA 

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...

100
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Sensational and accomplished.
Read Full Review
88
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Gripping and stylish thriller.
Read Full Review
80
LA Weekly F. X. Feeney
Their discretion makes From Hell less a horror movie than a classical film noir.
Read Full Review
80
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Ambitious, visually stunning and hugely accomplished.
80
Variety Derek Elley
Surprisingly conventional Olde London Towne gaslight mystery, gussied up with some doctored visuals, and an eccentric performance by Johnny Depp.
Read Full Review
80
New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf
A visionary breakthrough for the young directors, a darkly alluring and largely successful attempt to crowd the territory of Roman Polanski and Dario Argento.
Read Full Review
80
Village Voice J. Hoberman
Superbly shot around Prague -- From Hell is even more stylish than gruesome -- it has the lush decrepitude of an autumn compost heap or an old Hammer werewolf flick.
Read Full Review
75
San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham
Mystery skillfully evokes Victorian London's dark depths.
Read Full Review
75
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The movie works well as a straight-out horror yarn, proving that the Hughes Brothers are more versatile than their previous "ghetto pictures" suggest.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie feels dark, clammy and exhilarating -- it's like belonging to a secret club where you can have a lot of fun but might get into trouble.
Read Full Review
75
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Depp gives yet another introspective, slightly mopey performance -- Graham never begins to act (and never has begun, as far as I know). But they're surrounded by an authentic, first-rate English cast.
70
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's not a great movie by any means, but it grips tighter than a chokehold and it cuts as deep as a knife.
Read Full Review
67
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
A tug-of-war between a bracing vision of a truly infernal crime spree -- complete with engaging whodunit storytelling -- and a sometimes clumsy period drama.
Read Full Review
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's by far the most violent, most clinical and most sumptuously atmospheric.
Read Full Review
63
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
An amazing physical specimen, beautifully photographed and edited. If you think of it as your own opium dream, you may dismiss the lousy story as a mere side effect.
Read Full Review
60
Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark
The movie's most glaring flaw is that the brothers and their screenwriters, Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias, don't manage to preserve the secret of the Ripper's identity for nearly as long as they intend to.
60
The New York Times A.O. Scott
So beautifully realized as a mood piece that it takes a while for a slight disappointment to register.
Read Full Review
60
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
An astonishing act of synthesis, bringing together disparate Ripper theories and a fiercely idiosyncratic version of London's history, architecture, policing and social structure.
Read Full Review
50
USA Today Staff [Not Credited]
With almost as many subplots as corpses, the movie maintains its mild watchability only because the Ripper saga still engrosses.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Labyrinthine yet oversimple, the story seems to hide a more provocative one. But perhaps this is the nature of the beast.
Read Full Review
50
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
There's no bite or sting, nor is there a single moment when the film is anything close to scary. It isn't ever engaging, either; it's a dull, sluggish bum-out.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Lacks the energy and urgency of its source material.
40
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
A visual tour-de-force; it's just that there's not much else to sink your teeth into once the pretty colors fade from view.
Read Full Review
40
Film Threat Heather Wadowski
Could have been a beautiful and suspenseful thriller, lukewarm performances make the film just another movie to add to one's "rent-it-when-it-comes-to-DVD" list.
Read Full Review
40
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
It is deeply unpleasant to see women abducted, tortured and eviscerated by a methodical and meticulous butcher.
Read Full Review
38
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
A visionary sort of horror movie should ponder three words: "Bram Stoker's Dracula."
38
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Feels stagy, stiff and entirely unnecessary.
Read Full Review
38
Boston Globe Jay Carr
What the Hughes brothers have come up with is, to borrow another phrase from that bygone age, a penny dreadful.
30
Salon.com Charles Taylor
A brain-dead version of a dark and complex work.
Read Full Review
30
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
The only note of authenticity in the movie comes from Ian Holm, playing the royal physician. What is this nuanced performance -- at least until the final fireworks -- doing in this twaddle?
Read Full Review
20
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Feels razor thin. None of the characters is particularly noteworthy. And the revelations of deep-seated conspiracy in the usual privileged, closed circles are hackneyed and tired.
Read Full Review
20
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The Hughes boys blow it by burying a fine cast -- Robbie Coltrane as a cop and Ian Holm as a royal sawbones are standouts -- in stock scares, sappy romance and cliches that really are from hell.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Gino E. gave it a 5:
"From Hell" is a modern serial killer police mystery, that is trying to be hip by taking an old London setting. The accents are terrible. Johnny is really trying, but obviously not good enough. Sometimes too bloody. Too many characters are beeing introduced who has nothing to do with the storyline at all. No wonder this film is 45 minutes too long. Nobody wants to watch long scenes about town hookers and their daily problems and lesbian escapades. Loads of other cliches come to mind, but are not worth mentioning. There is one nice scene, that has nothing to do with anything, but pays a nice tribute to David Lynch's "Elephant Man". Overall: Enjoyable if you're bored, but after all, it's another "Let's-guess-who-the-killer-in-question-is" flick, that we've all seen before.

Gabor A. gave it a 5:
The Hughes brothers have an eye for detail and know how to work the camera, but the storyline was terrible. If you are a hooker whose friends are all being horribly murdered then would you still enter any mysterious carriage for some grapes and money? Also, despite the fact that this is suposed to be a murder mystery jonny depp's character does little solving. The crimes just happen until finally the killer gives himself away knowing that clues are apparently non existent. Interesting but story line falls short very much.

raVen gave it a 4:
Johnny Depp has this way of ingesting opiates and wading through pools of blood that makes you half suspect that this is what he does in real life between movies...But of course we all know he's REALLY a pirate. I was a big Depp fan before this movie, and I was still a big fan afterwards. But other than a good turn by Ian Holm, this movie didn't have much for me besides the aforementioned opiates and pools of blood. If I had to give it a grade I'd say O+.

Tyler G. gave it an 8:
Very entertaining, and the characters are intriguing. Depp is as cool as ever, and Heather Graham is stunning. Ian Holm is one spooky doc in this movie. I recommend the DVD and the special features if you are at all interested in the Jack the Ripper lore. Then you should go to www.casebook.org and you will be enlightened. Anyway the movie is as good as an escape as any you'll find out there.

BJ gave it a 10:
The best movie about Jack the Ripper.

AJ M. gave it a 9:
Fantastic movie. The ending wasn't very good, but other than that, it was fantastic. It's pretty poor how not many people actually realise that this is (for most part) a true story.

Jake M. gave it a 6:
This is not the greatest movie of all time but its still a movie worth watching. Although you do come out of the theater asking questions, its still pretty cool because of the horror. The Hughes Brothers did a good job at showing the evil in Jack's eyes. And thats about it. I think people will watch this movie just to get some more knowledge of one of the most famous killers of all time.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | BOOKS | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise | Partnerships                                Visit other CNET Networks sites:

Copyright ©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use