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The Monkey's Mask
Metascore
49 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 16 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 16
  3. Negative: 4 out of 16
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    90
    In directing The Monkey's Mask from Annie Kennedy's adaptation of Dorothy Porter's novel-in-poetry, Samantha Lang displays considerable style and assurance, with Porter and McGillis giving beautifully nuanced portrayals.
  2. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: David Ehrenstein
    90
    Think "Basic Instinct" with brains, and you've got it.
  3. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Paul Malcolm
    80
    What makes the film compelling is the filmmakers' ability to blend a studied (occasionally academic) dissection of cultural and sexual decadence with a potboiler plot.
  4. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    75
    Less elliptical and more down-and-dirty than Lang's interesting debut film, ''The Well,'' this one tumbles through Sydney's academic and alternative poetry circles and is built around a lesbian private eye.
    All this critic's reviews
  5. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    70
    Builds and sustains considerable interest through its unexpected characterizations, unusual milieu and atmospheric style.
  6. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Paula Nechak
    67
    It isn't quite like watching a train wreck -- it's more perverse and anti-climactic -- but it's as hard to shake once it's passed.
  7. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    63
    Kelly McGillis quite literally as you've never seen her -- as a manipulative, icy sex goddess in whose bedroom there are no limits.
  8. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Kevin Maynard
    60
    Makes for compulsive viewing.
    All this critic's reviews
  9. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Loren King
    50
    It is awkward and dull, a capital crime for an aspiring noir.
    All this critic's reviews
  10. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    50
    McGillis, though, is the film's worst enemy. Her wooden attempts to recreate Kathleen Turner circa 1981 undermine too many scenes.
  11. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Bob Graham
    50
    Poetry, lesbian sex and murder might be a killer combination if a deadly pace weren't included in the mix.
  12. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    50
    The plot itself isn't really strong enough to stand alone. And that leaves the film an essentially conventional whodunit, if one with a rather unconventional sleuth at its center.
  13. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    38
    Remarkably sluggish and not particularly suspenseful.
    All this critic's reviews
  14. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    30
    The Monkey's Mask is filmed with an eye toward an arthouse sheen, although Lang's dramatic pacing is sluggish and dull.
  15. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    20
    Instead of suspense, there is confusion; instead of intrigue, a lot of inexplicable confrontation among characters whose significance is not so much enigmatic as obscure.
  16. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    10
    The film seems dimly aware of its own ridiculousness, but it lacks the constitution for self-mockery.
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