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The Long Kiss Goodnight
Metascore
44 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 20
  3. Negative: 6 out of 20
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  1. Empire
    Reviewed by: David Eimer
    80
    Most of the fun comes from the Davis/Jackson pairing and some frantic action scenes, though problems include too many "meanigful" close-ups of cigarettes being lit and booming (appropriately) sound.
  2. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    80
    Though some of the violence is nastier than it needs to be and the obligatory climactic melee, complete with choppers, skidding trucks and explosions, overstays its welcome, The Long Kiss Goodnight stays fun because it plays its heroine's split personality for laughs, not trauma.
  3. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    80
    Writer Shane Black mines his thriller premise while musing on issues of identity and redemption; he also shaped the itchy camaraderie of Davis and Jackson.
  4. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    75
    Geena Davis and her director and husband, Renny Harlin, recover from their "Cutthroat Island" fiasco in grand style, and screenwriter Shane Black ("The Last Boy Scout") juggles jolts and jokes with a mad fervor that almost earns him his $4 million salary.
  5. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    70
    With the help of his stunt and special effects teams, Harlin delivers more than enough goods to satisfy genre fans, so main question is whether a female action hero, and Davis in particular, is ready to be embraced by the huge public the film is clearly targeting.
  6. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    67
    The movie is a lot of fun if you don't think about it too much, the stuntwork should satisfy the genre fanatics in the crowd even though it doesn't set any new plateaus, and the rapport between Davis and Jackson is enough to keep the sticklers for realism in abeyance at least until the final credits roll.
  7. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    63
    I liked it in the same way I might like an arcade game: It holds your attention until you run out of quarters, and then you wander away without giving it another thought.
  8. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Staff (not credited)
    63
    This is the kind of movie in which a dozen bad guys with an automatic weapon in each hand couldn't hit a lake if they were standing at the bottom of it, to steal the screenplay's best wiseacre remark.
  9. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    63
    Great premise, terrible execution.
  10. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    60
    A tour de force of technical brilliance, with flashes of humor and a wild spirit of adventure signifying that you're not supposed to take it too seriously, but the cumulative impact of its avalanche of mayhem is so numbing that it's enough to shrivel your soul.
  11. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Barbara Shulgasser
    50
    One of the most blithely, giddily ridiculous movies to come along in ages.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Elvis Mitchell
    50
    Mr. Black's screenplay is mean-spirited, but it earns its keep with sharp, sarcastic dialogue and ingenious ways of setting up this story.
  13. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ken Tucker
    42
    Ultimately, however, Kiss is too ridiculous to engage us as a thriller yet too cringingly self-conscious to amuse us as camp.
  14. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Rita Kempley
    40
    Unfortunately, the filmmaking couple take the fetishistic masquerade far too seriously. They may describe it as a "departure" from traditional fare, but it's simply the same old action-packed guff.
  15. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    38
    The movie tries to juggle motherly love sentiment with wanna-be snappy ripostes with a violent streak that extends to threatening a grade-schooler with blinding and busted kneecaps. [11 Oct 1996, Pg.03.D]
    All this critic's reviews
  16. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Stack
    25
    A "nonstop thriller" that is also a nonstop dud. Underline the word "long" in the title.
  17. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    25
    The suspense sequences are straight from the standard Hollywood blueprint, and the movie as a whole is so sloppily assembled that it's almost incoherent at times.
  18. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    20
    The problem with this movie is the problem with most Renny Harlin movies: There's an excessive amount of excess -- a mind-numbing plurality of firearm battles, vehicular explosions and brutally frank sexual talk.
  19. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Jimmy Fowler
    0
    The long hours Davis says she spent training with knives and guns can't rescue her character from drowning in the story's hokiness. Fans will be aghast at what they see--a movie so garish and silly, even Geena Davis can't save it.
  20. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    0
    If you haven't lived until you've heard Geena Davis say "Suck my dick," New Line probably deserves your money.
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