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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
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35
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32
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80
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62
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47
Bella
63
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71
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60
Body of War
58
Bra Boys
70
Caramel
54
Cashback
44
Chaos Theory
32
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69
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82
Chop Shop
46
CJ7
78
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30
Cover
49
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35
Deal
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73
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20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58
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43
Favor, The
58
First Saturday in May, The
57
Flawless
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx
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44
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41
Funny Games
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
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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
55
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
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My Brother Is an Only Child
55
Noise
62
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
79
Reprise
72
Roman de gare
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
50
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85
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24
Sex and Death 101
66
Shelter
75
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67
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67
Son of Rambow
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Standard Operating Procedure
76
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Surfwise
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82
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57
Teeth
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Turn the River
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Tuya's Marriage
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Unsettled
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Up the Yangtze
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Vice
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Water Lilies
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Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
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Without the King
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Witnesses, The
63
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
45
Zombie Strippers
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
90
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chop Shop
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Reprise
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
75
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Priceless
72
Roman de gare
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
Standard Operating Procedure
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Jellyfish
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Son of Rambow
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Unsettled
66
Shelter
65
Married Life
64
Surfwise
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
62
Battle for Haditha
62
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Girls Rock!
60
Body of War
59
Under the Same Moon
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Fugitive Pieces
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
57
Turn the River
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Mister Lonely
55
Noise
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Sangre de mi sangre
50
Look
49
Dark Matter
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
46
Previous Engagement, A
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
17
Prom Night
xx
Tashan
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Willard
New Line Cinema
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for terror/violence, some sexual content and language
Starring
Crispin Glover,
David Parker,
Laura Harring,
R. Lee Ermey,
Jackie Burroughs,
Kristen Cloke,
Rick Lazzarini,
and
Kim McKamy
Socially inept and saddled with a miserable job, Willard shares a powerful bond with the rats who dwell in his basement. When Willard's world is turned upside down by tragedy, those responsible must answer to his rapidly growing pack of ravenous, fearsome friends. (New Line Cinema)
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Glen Morgan
Gilbert Ralston (1971 screenplay and book Ratman's Notebook)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Glen Morgan
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 7, 2003
Video: October 7, 2003
Theatrical: March 14, 2003
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
105 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Bruce Davison played the role of Willard in the 1971 horror classic

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
Film Threat
Kevin Carr
Willard doesnt try to be great art (although if you really think about it, there are plenty of themes borrowed from Hamlet, The Birds and Frankenstein to name a few). Willard just is.

90
Time
Joel Stein
Glover, as usual, is phenomenal.

89
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Cooly feral in dark suit and tie, Glovers the man in the gray flannel suit gone way, way over the edge, and its one of the most fully realized screen performances in ages, rats and all.

83
Portland Oregonian
Kim Morgan
The "Citizen Kane" of rat movies makes for a terrific overhaul in this wonderfully entertaining and, yes, touching take on that terribly confused man/child named Willard.

80
Village Voice
Michael Atkinson
In a culture clogged with appropriated effluvia and remake cop-outs, Willard is wittier and nastier than we deserve.

80
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
This is a one-riff movie and instant cult classic.

80
LA Weekly
Chuck Wilson
It's one of many references to the movie-wise, but a resonant one, for Glover's performance turns out to be shockingly emotional, drawn as daringly close to the bone -- within this story's limited thematic range -- as Anthony Perkins' work in Hitchcock's seminal film.

80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
It only takes rat trainers and CGI artists to create swarms of vermin, but it takes a twisted kind of genius to treat them as equals.

75
Chicago Tribune
Kevin M. Williams
This faithful resurrection of the original "Willard," a twisted gem in its own right, also is funny.

75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
Wonderfully deranged.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Jonathan Curiel
A silly, snarling romp -- a fun (if you're in the mood for it), sometimes scary look at the life of a socially awkward man whose best friend is a white rodent he names Socrates.

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
Has the modesty of a savvy, smart drive-in movie with Hollywood studio polish and a movie buff's loving care.

75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The new version is actually better. It's still a fairly ham-handed revenge-of-the-nerd horror fable, but you don't go to a movie like Willard for subtlety. You go to be skeeved out by rats, rats, and more rats, and I'm tempted to say that Willard does a fairly rat-tastic job of it.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Want your skin to crawl? This one's for you.

75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Morgan never reaches the heights the film probably would have hit if had been directed by Tim Burton, whose style is frequently evoked -- especially Shirley Walker's playful score, which seems channeled directly from Burton's frequent collaborator Danny Elfman.

70
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
Has plenty of dark horror style, but it lacks the weird charm of the 1971 original starring Bruce Davison...It's a nice homage.

70
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
The new Willard, which has taken the original's humanity and the psychological validity, leavened with a dollop of dark humor, and replaced them with a technically impressive but essentially heartless spoof.

63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The pleasure comes from watching the clever rodents do their stuff. Computerized images have been kept to a minimum, and real animals provide most of the film's atmosphere.

63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
As filler for the long, dry winter movie season, the movie is more than passable, and its sense of humor has a wicked, unforgiving spin that is decidedly pro-rodent.

63
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Simply twiddling with the fine-tuning on the central character is not enough to warrant remaking a film. Both Glover and Willard deserve better.

63
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
There is real wit in Glover's performance. And wit, too, in R. Lee Ermey's performance as the boss, which draws heavily on Ermey's real-life experience as a drill sergeant.

63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Glover, wearing his close-cropped hair in a pompadour and striking beady-eyed, furrow-browed poses that scare the hair off a tarantula, makes it as much fun as a rat revenge movie can be.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Ray Conlogue
Perhaps too much energy was spent on being stylish rather than simply low-rent horrifying. The upshot is not very stylish and not very scary.

50
USA Today
Mike Clark
The movie isn't without style, but the material can't remotely sustain 100 minutes.

50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
The chills are functional at best and the attempts at pathos negligible.

50
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
As high camp, Willard might have something going for it, but not as a horror movie.

40
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
You're just sitting there, somewhere between mildly amused and fairly bored, watching the filmmakers squander Hollywood's most eccentric character actor and a lot of very fine specimens of the order Rodentia.

40
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Production-designed within an inch of its life, this remake's best conceit is the casting of Crispin Glover as its socially maladroit rat fancier.

30
Variety
Scott Foundas
Strictly for the birds.

20
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Everything that was modest, soundly grounded and therefore horrifying about the 1971 rodentarama that starred Bruce Davison is now insistent, Grand-Guignol-intense and therefore shrug-offable when it isn't downright awful.
20
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
The worst flaw of Willard is a clunky tone-deaf screenplay based on Gilbert Ralston's original and updated by the director. Barely a line flies by that doesn't land with a wooden thud.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 22 User Votes
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