Metascore

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 30 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 26 Ratings

  • Starring: Amy Poehler, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Rachel Weisz
  • Summary: Tim (Stiller) and Nick (Black) are best friends, neighbors and co-workers, whose equal footing is suddenly tripped up when one of Nick's harebrained get-rich-quick schemes actually succeeds: Vapoorizer, a spray that literally makes dog poop, or any other kind for that matter, evaporate into thin air. Tim, who had poo-pooed Nick's idea and passed on an opportunity to get in on the deal, can only watch as Nick's fortune -- and Tim's own envy -- grow to equally outrageous proportions. (DreamWorks) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 30
  2. Negative: 16 out of 30
  1. The movie works fairly well as a pitch-dark comedy, and very well as a dead-on satire of upward mobility and its discontents.
  2. 60
    It may not feature the funniest performances Stiller, Walken and Black have ever given but, these three guys giving performances just this funny is enough to make Envy a movie you'll end up kicking yourself for missing.
  3. There are a few chuckles here and there, and there are odd wisps of cleverness in the script by Steve Adams, but for the most part, Envy is a film that doesn't know where it's going.
  4. 38
    Envy is a shaggy dog-poop story that'll make you wish you could spray something at the screen to make it disappear.

See all 30 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 18
  2. Negative: 7 out of 18
  1. Bilbo
    9
    How can you give this movie 31 I thought the plot of this movie was quite well planed out. Also both Jack Black did some very nice acting in this movie. Expand
  2. MatthewR.
    8
    The people that rate these movies have nothing better to do! This movie is way better than all those idiotic "gangsta movies."
  3. Sam
    7
    Jack Black and Ben Stiller are capable of being VERY funny, and in Envy they are, but it doesn't really introdouce to the ignorant their true genius. Expand
  4. The plot of Envy revolves around the invention of a miracle spray that instantly makes dog poop disappear, not the most sophisticated of scenarios I grant you but some of the great comic movies of recent times have been conceived from less, just look at Wayne's World or Zoolander for examples of that.

    A look a cast list that includes comic talents such as Amy Poehler, Jack Black and Ben Stiller as well as the gorgeous Rachel Weisz would in fact suggest that it would be difficult to make an unfunny movie regardless of plot. Unfortunately, against all the odds, that is exactly what Oscar winning director Barry Levinson has managed to create. To be far to Levinson most of the blame lays solely with the script which is unfocused and uneven making it difficult, even for a cast as talented as that on show, to derive much humour from. Not even an appearance from the ever reliable Christopher Walken can save Envy from being close to a complete mess.
    Expand

See all 18 User Reviews

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