- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
100This is one of Downey's most enjoyable performances, and one of Kilmer's funniest. It's a relationship comedy wrapped in sharp talk and gunplay, a triumphant comeback for Black, and one of the year's best movies.
-
91The deliriously enjoyable noir comedy-thriller Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang does nothing by halves and everything by doubles.
-
91It's one nutty holiday fruitcake that is appetizing and tasty.
-
88Black's retro-noir reminds us why we love movies: because they can surprise us, even when we're ankle deep in bullet casings, bodies and enough twists to tie us in knots.
-
88This tribute to old-fashioned hard-boiled detective fiction is laced with Hollywood satire and snappy, lightning-fast dialogue.
-
88The plot is thin: You'll guess the villain early, then pick holes in story construction. But Black's ear for mock-noir speeches doesn't fail him, and he gleefully parodies the chase scenes that dominated his action movies.
-
83Black, who wrote "Lethal Weapon," makes his directorial debut, and he puts a fresh spin not only on that film but also on a whole slew of films noirs.
-
80One of the coolest and most memorable films of 2005 – I just want to see it again.
-
80Bold and breathless, this trippy, hilarious, know-it-all comedy-thriller will have you reliving its ironic spoils for days, but you'll still be hard-pressed to nail the actual story.
-
80Snappy, fun and outrageously irreverent, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the work of someone with nothing to lose, which is only to the audience's gain.
-
80The zingers come so fast and furious that if you miss a few (and even the most alert viewer will the first time), there are always more.
-
80Amazingly and incessantly funny, a free-form riff on Hollywood shenanigans, the film noir genre and film in general.
-
80Macabre, yes, but the movie's also inventive and funny. You get a lot of smart bang-bang for your buck.
-
78It's also a doozy of a comedy, matching the dark wit of Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer novels to the stylized theatrics of Matt Helm-era Dean Martin.
-
75Shane Black creates a movie that is defiantly smartass and too cool for the room. I couldn't have liked it more.
-
75Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a movie obsessed more with the act of telling a story than the story itself, which explains why, when the movie's finally over, less than half the audience will have understood the finer points of the mystery.
-
75One of the season's most delightful surprises.
-
75Has some hilarious moments and still succeeds in dramatic terms.
-
75It's a merry deconstructive delight and easily the best party in town.
-
75Robert Downey Jr. is perfect as Harry. He brings the right mix of cynicism, self-doubt, and unpretentiousness.
-
75The picture’s great, fast-moving fun for the most part, and Kilmer gives his most appealing, relaxed, and amusing performance since "Real Genius."
-
75The movie is pretty damned funny in its insubstantial, gratuitously violent, gratuitously everything way.
-
70Downey and Monaghan are wonderful at playing characters that compensate for the harshness of their past with flippant swaggers.
-
70Black's sadistic streak remains as uncomfortable as it ever was, and his direction is very much in the house style of producer Joel Silver. But both elements perfectly suit the material, which sneaks in a lot of sly stuff beneath the slick surface.
-
70Jumpy and ironic, Downey is a quicksilver delight and Kilmer is funny as the gay Perry. But Black’s inventive, self-conscious script--heavy on voice-over narration--can be too clever for its own good. The movie is baroque fun, but exhausting.
-
70The comic surface of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is all polished brilliance, with surprisingly few dull patches...The movie doesn't deliver in the kiss-kiss department, though.
-
70Once again making a diverting but insubstantial movie look better than it is, Downey, with haggard charm to burn, is winning all the way. Kilmer is riotous at times as an impeccably groomed, businesslike guy keen to assert his orientation at every opportunity.
-
70I wouldn't trust him (Downey) to look after my handkerchief, but I'll watch him in anything, and that is why Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang--smug as it is, and more like a day in the reptile house than a night at the movies--remains a slithery treat.
-
67It's rowdy, often tasteless and very much in the buddy-action vein of the scripts that made him famous, but in a much more comic spirit.
-
63Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang contains a lot of comedy and invention, but doesn't much benefit from its clever style. The characters and plot are so promising that maybe Black should have backed off and told the story deadpan, instead of mugging so shamelessly for laughs.
-
63Designed as a giant put-on, "Kiss Kiss" is so inside Hollywood, so anxious to bite the hand that fed Black, that it plays like an elaborate prank. Some of it is a lot of fun; most of it is a lot of nonsense.
-
63Steeped in attitude - a smart-alecky, insider sarcasm that can be pretty clever at times, but also pretty insufferable.
-
63All three actors give it their all, but Monaghan stands out with a sexy yet oddly down-to-earth variation on the Midwest girl gone wrong, thanks partly to a dark dysfunctional family secret.
-
60The sort of movie that believes coolness is next to godliness, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang trades heavily and successfully on Downey's unflappable likability.
-
60Cheerful mess of a pulp-fiction parody.
-
50Turns into a film that is too ostentatiously pleased with itself, so in love with its own cleverness it doesn't notice it's darn near worn you out.
-
50It's just a movie with no particular reason for existing, a flashy, trifling throwaway whose surface cleverness masks a self-infatuated credulity.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 47 out of 55
-
Mixed: 2 out of 55
-
Negative: 6 out of 55
-
10
-
This odd-ball noir spoof is absolute sardonic heaven.
-
et10This movie is laugh out loud funny! With brilliant performances by all. A must watch for anyone who likes smart, irreverent films.