The Libertine
Metascore
44 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 30 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 30
  3. Negative: 12 out of 30
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  1. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    38
    Not since Philip Kaufman's 2000 "Quills," the story of the Marquis de Sade, have we had so debauched a literary and movie hero, and Johnny Depp plays him with the relish of an actor who has made odd-ball characters his specialty.
  2. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    38
    If your idea of a good time is watching a disjointed period piece featuring a scrawny dog defecating, dozens of dissipated people fornicating and a syphilitic Johnny Depp with oozing pustules on his face, The Libertine may be just the movie for you.
  3. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    38
    A glorious disaster.
  4. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    38
    What comes from the mouth of Johnny Depp...not the crucial spark of wit or insight that could encourage us to spend two hours with this cruel bore.
  5. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    33
    Dunmore creates a memorably grimy London, but the moral grime covering the film proves less memorable.
  6. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    30
    A trying experience. As we watch Rochester fall apart in spectacular fashion, it's clear that a major lure for the venturesome Depp was the chance to play a grotesque, to become a pestilent physical wreck with an artificial silver nose. There's more in that role for the actor, however, than there is for us.
  7. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    30
    It doesn't help matters that The Libertine seems to unload every olde English cliche on file.
  8. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    25
    What is most beguiling about The Libertine is that it allows Wilmot to self-destruct without ever giving us cause to care or relate.
  9. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Neva Chonin
    25
    There is little debauchery to be had in Laurence Dunmore's adaptation of The Libertine. In fact, hedonism has never looked so bleak.
  10. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    25
    Despite its title, the movie could hardly be less erotic. Indeed, promiscuity has never looked more totally unappealing, and its final scenes of Wilmot's advanced venereal disease are enough to make you take a vow of celibacy. A great date movie, this is not.
  11. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    20
    The picture is an enormous disappointment... The result is one of the most self-consciously grimy movies on record - it looks as if the negative were developed in a mud bath.
  12. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    0
    The Libertine is such a torturous mess that it winds up doing something I hadn't thought possible: It renders Johnny Depp charmless.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 40 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 22
  3. Negative: 7 out of 22
  1. VivW
    0
    This is where you need a minus section, just a long drawn out ramblings out of all context,vwaste of money.
  2. ChetR.
    8
    Fascinating for the first hour, especially the direct confrontation of the audience by the Earl, but then it gets confused and drops into incoherence. But the excellence of its premise, its quest of what life and love and art is, the uniformly interesting performances and mis-en-scene, makes me wish they could have pulled it off.… Full Review »
  3. RyanC.
    0
    If I could vote -50 I would...this movie is that bad!
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