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Wimbledon
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 21 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Romance
Written by:
Adam Brooks
Jennifer Flackett
Mark Levin
Directed by: Richard Loncraine
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 17, 2004
DVD: December 28, 2004
Running Time: 97 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / UK
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for language, sexuality and partial nudity
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Paul Bettany, Jon Favreau, Sam Neill, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Austin Nichols
A sweet and funny tale of romance across the net between an unlucky wild card player (Bettany) and an American star (Dunst) at Wimbledon. (Universal)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Firewall
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer 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...
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A sports movie with a quick wit, uncommon grace and a romantic soul.
Salon.com Charles Taylor
Slick, satisfying entertainment, as is the chemistry of Dunst and Bettany.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
The movie is smart, funny, romantic, and rousing.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This is not a great movie, and you will be able to live quite happily without seeing it, but what it does, it does with a certain welcome warmth.
Read Full Review >Premiere Staff (Not Credited)
It's capable and strong direction that hold the audience through the final match, but in the end, it's Paul Bettany's world, and the rest of us are just happy to visit for an hour and a half.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Nothing more than amiable fluff, yet Bettany infuses it with a brazen dash of reality. You believe in him, even when you don't quite believe in the movie.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
A bit of a philosophical muddle, but the climactic tennis scenes are galvanically convincing, with some long, nerve-racking volleys. And the rest of the picture works as "Notting Hill" (1999) with balls--and rackets.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rick Kisonak
You aren't likely to see a film with more warmth and good humor anytime soon or one that does more to give feel good filmmaking a good name.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Bettany is the best thing about the movie. A wonderful dramatic actor, he also proves to be richly skilled at romantic comedy, playing Peter with an easy grace and a droll sense of humor.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
While Bettany and Dunst are both appealing, their chemistry lacks much fizz. As it is, the pair seem less like lovers than bouncy transatlantic cousins.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
As a love story, Wimbledon is a washout. As a meditation on sports psychology, it might help improve your game.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Wimbledon may have its faults, but it's the sort of upbeat fantasy that's tough to resist. Maybe love wins in tennis after all.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A slick comedy that's more fun than it has any right to be.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Although Wimbledon is a much more conventional film, it still has cleverer-than-average dialogue and sharply drawn subsidiary characters.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
Boasts appealing leads and dazzling court play, but the film never rises above its by-the-numbers plot to generate emotional heat.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Angel Cohn
Bettany, previously best known as a supporting player, shoulders the burden of a Hugh Grant-style romantic lead surprisingly well, revealing an offbeat charm.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
The Bjorn Borg of romantic comedies: precise, good-looking, dependable and serviceable, if predictable. It never really heats up, which is too bad.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Hank Sartin
Never quite settles on a tone, veering from wacky comedy to earnest sports drama to romantic farce. The results are predictably muddled, if mostly harmless.
Read Full Review >Empire Angie Errigo
The tennis itself is ridiculously far-fetched, and yet this may still be the best tennis movie ever made.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Surprisingly, the weak link is Dunst, who's previously been the delight of all her movies.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
There's no hiding a hokey love story that undercuts the picture's compelling tennis scenes.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
The perfect movie for 14-year-old girls having a slumber party, and a must for everyone else to avoid.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
As messages go, I've certainly heard worse. As movies go, Wimbledon is a generally painless float down a lazy river.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
An ultra-predictable if essentially painless romantic comedy.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
The cinematic equivalent of a careless foot fault.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Karen Karbo
The only genuine laughs come from Peter's self-sabotaging inner monologue.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Wimbledon is refried "Notting Hill" with a Teen People glaze. The latter movie also gave us an American star cheering up some tired British guy. Wimbledon is blander and far less worth rooting for.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
A fanciful tennis-themed romance that compounds the old dilemma of "Will he get the girl?" with "Will he get the trophy?" But the answers are too predictable and laughs too scattered for this middling Universal release to generate much in the way of humor or suspense.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
The appealing leads have strong chemistry, but it's the wrong kind: an affectionate big-brother/little-sister rapport that leaves a discomfiting taint on their more amorous clinches.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
Director Richard Loncraine (Richard III) moves things right along, but during the final tennis match, his pacing is undone by sports-movie convention, particularly the witless color commentary offered by tennis legends John McEnroe and Chris Evert.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
There's no script to speak of, just two appealing actors volleying comic-romantic cliches at each other.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's a harmless enough movie, and quite a good-looking one; Bettany and Dunst are an attractive enough couple, even if Lizzie has been written as a selfish little snip and he as a whining man-child.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 21 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Lez gave it a10:
It lacks plenty of things, but this is certainly a romance movie, and you can feel every bit of it.
mickey t. gave it a9:
Simple but sooo effective, like any solid rom-com i love tennis, and i love the constant buzz the film has... not too in your face, but still lively thruout... Actually quite subtle in places, and great on re-viewing... S.e.e. T.h.i.s .F.i.l.m.
jay s. gave it a1:
Gotta say it: this is probably the worst movie that I have ever seen. There, I said it.
Faith R. gave it a2:
Very imature and shallow. Very sexist and boring. Where are the women tennis players.? No chemistry and leading man is not cute.
bobby bo-jingle gave it an8:
Pros: it has romance, but there is a surprising twist other romantic comedies dont have: it also has comedy in it. cons: gets unbelievable at times overview: a good all-round movie that deserves that $4 to rent it. Heik, it might even deserve the $17 to buy it.
Chris gave it an8:
Although a predictable movie that seemed to keep true right to the hero & heroine love-story ending, I did find it quite enjoyable and something that kept a constant grin on my face.
Mark B. gave it a6:
It's hard to cast two actors more charming, likable or charasmatic than Paul Bettany (Master and Commander) and Kirsten Dunst. Theoretically, women should've packed the multiplexes for this tennis-themed romantic comedy, if only because it centers on a sport generally considered more female-friendly than most (e.g., NOT football, baseball, basketball, boxing or golf). as for men, four words: KIRSTEN DUNST GETS SWEATY. So with all those potentially surefire elements, why did Wimbledon double-fault at the box office? Ultimately, I thought it was far too leisurely, and leisurely is precisely what you DON'T want in a sports movie. Director Richard Loncraine doesn't build any real sense of urgency or tension, which is the one element that both great sports flicks and mediocre but momentarily effective ones share. (Why do you think that 99% of them culminate in a one-point score difference achieved in the last few seconds of the game?) To a degree, tennis itself is to blame for not being a game that depends on a rigid time schedule, but Wimbledon's lackadaisical attitude and pacing extends to other elements as well: Sam Neill, as Dunst's hard-driving dad, who doesn't want her to get involved with Bettany for fear it'll blunt her competitive edge, proves to be a straw man. Again, the two leads aren't to blame, but I couldn't help reflecting back to Dunst's other sports movie, the delightful cheerleader flick Bring It On from four years ago. Among other things, that one taught me just how grueling and physically demanding cheerleading is, and as a result exploded most of my preconceived stereotypes and prejudices about cheerleaders. The only thing I didn't know before about tennis that I learned from Wimbledon is that tennis players scream and yell at officials as vociferously as ballplayers do. Come to think of it, the appearance of John McEnroe in the cast reminded me that I didn't learn THAT from Wimbledon, either.
