Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 30 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 39 Ratings

  • Starring: Frank Langella, Johnny Depp
  • Summary: A rare book dealer (Depp) seeking out the last two copies of a demon text discovers a strange demonic conspiracy.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 30
  2. Negative: 9 out of 30
  1. Polanski's directing is marvelously assured and Depp is always fun to watch.
  2. 80
    Amusing, ultra-deadpan entertainment. The director was lucky enough to have a cast who were in on the joke and tuned in to his wavelength.
  3. 60
    Compulsively watchable and its occasional lapses into that familiar Polanskian overkill are almost charming.
  4. A non-thrilling occult thrillersolame and unoriginal that it would be an embarrassment for any director, much less a talent like Roman Polanski.

See all 30 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 17
  2. Negative: 2 out of 17
  1. telmoo.
    10
    Special, unforgettable, surrealist, explendid.
  2. 10
    Masterpiece, Polanski should be proud of this one.
    A Dark occult feature, feels like a film noir although it is not, great performance by the
    ensemble lead by Johnnie Depp. Expand
  3. 8
    I really liked this movie up until the end. Depp's search for the books and the variations he found among them was very interesting. However, I thought the end was schmaltzy and not in keeping with the rest of the film. The scenes involving the meeting of the secret society and the death of Depp's client were particularly silly. It could have been really wonderful had the end lived up to expectations based on the rest of the movie. Expand
  4. Utterly...utterly...boring. Nothing ever happens. I give it a 2 just because I am a fan of Lena Olin. The movie is perfect from a cinematographic point of view, except maybe for the protragonist's disgusting habit of lighting up a cigarette every 5 minutes. But the story is so lame, it is hard to stay awake. The devil is too stupid to get a simple book ? Bad news for all the evil people in the world, when their own boss is so dumb... Expand

See all 17 User Reviews

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