Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 14 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 15 Ratings

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 14
  2. Negative: 3 out of 14
  1. Reviewed by: Justine Elias
    Apr 8, 2012
    75
    High school students (the jocks, the brains, the princesses, the criminals, the basket cases), long the favored prey of serial killers, somehow manage to fight back from the brink yet again in Detention, a bright, witty new genre mash-up.
  2. Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    Apr 12, 2012
    60
    It's as if the TV character Dawson directed "Heathers," or another one, Parker Lewis, remade "Scream." Who'd have guessed that would be a can't-lose idea?
  3. Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    Apr 11, 2012
    58
    Detention is ballsy, audacious, and uncompromising, but the overall effect of Kahn's Hellzapoppin-meets-Twitter aesthetic is exhausting rather than energizing. It's an ice-cream headache of a movie-movie that's so relentlessly "fun," it's borderline obnoxious.
  4. Reviewed by: Farran Smith Nehme
    Apr 13, 2012
    38
    Detention does have imaginative editing and a stylish, candy-colored look - that is, so long as no one's vomiting, an activity that takes up an ungodly portion of the running time.

See all 14 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 1 out of 5
  1. This movie is attempting to be a lot of things all at once, and has the attention span of an ADHD child in a chinashop. It's sloppy and most of the ideas, gags, characters, whims, plots don't go anywhere; but what is endearing and why I am in love with this movie is the chaotic energy put forth in the effort. At its heart it is most like HEATHERS. The pace is consistently frantic, the performances are charming, and the script is maddening-genius. You'll know in the first five-minutes if this film is for you. Expand
  2. This is a good movie, have some interesting moments, the cast is good, Josh Hutcherson wow, great young actor, and Spencer Locke amazing girl, this movie is really interesting and in some moemtns scare. Expand
  3. Illogical, ADD riddled, frantic, not unity in terms of story. That is what makes this film worth watching. The characters are a pastiche of various stereotypes from the past several generations and the actors play it up to the max and visibly enjoy every minute. The visual style is a perfect mashup of colours and eccentricities of Generation X meets Generation Y with everything in between highlighted and lambasted. Even though the film switches gears with almost every scene, the unity of force and momentum never waivers. All this said, one must realize that everything I've said that I like about this film, also seems to work against it. Anyone outside of its core audience will probably hate it. Regardless of the evident love and care put into the film. Expand
  4. Someone on IMDB wrote that this movie is intelligent masquerading as trash. I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.

    It's got the same fa
    st, unnatural conversation you see in many an MTV teenage-drama series. I found it very difficult to keep up with it because it required me to be glued to the screen. Something the rest of the movie did not warrant.

    Not sure what the plot is, there is a LOT of talk yet no storyline going forward.

    Avoid at all costs unless you think MTV is the pinnacle of television.
    Expand

See all 5 User Reviews

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