The Producers
Metascore
52 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 37 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 37
  2. Mixed: 19 out of 37
  3. Negative: 4 out of 37
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  1. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    20
    There are no real people in The Producers --only actors laboring to dispel whatever magic they once were thought to possess. The director, Susan Stroman, has brought the Broadway smash to the screen (where it began, almost 40 years ago) with cataclysmic results.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    38
    The Producers on screen, as a musical, does not work. It is not very funny. It doesn't look right. It's depressing.
  3. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    25
    From bad to worse - Even in verse - The Producers moves like a hearse -Mildness and blandness -Mugging like madness - Who knew that "Rent" would win this fight? - Murdering a genre's just not all right!
  4. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    20
    The Producers is nightmarish, in its febrile way, a head-bangingly primitive version of an overrated Broadway show that grew out of a clumsy 1968 movie with an inflated reputation.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 147 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 42 out of 59
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 59
  3. Negative: 12 out of 59
  1. Ken
    6
    Though some of the humor falls flat and it suffers from an unbearably long ending, The Producers is quite a fun and exuberant movie.
  2. RoyR.
    0
    I'm someone who has a fairly strong stomach for bad films, it takes a nasty ride for me to stop appreciating something even as wallpaper, That said I turned this off. It was making me sick so I turned it off.… Full Review »
  3. JohnH.
    8
    I never saw the Broadway production. I am too young (15) to know the original version. But this movie seemed like a good performance of a good musical. It does not stand out for its musical virtues, but nothing on Broadway (besides Soundheim) is of musical caliber anywhere near the average classical CD I can pick up at the library. Musicals are never created to showcase music alone, anyway. Two complaints seem to be: that the movie does not convey the full brilliance of the Broadway version, and that it does not take advantage of the movie-medium. As to the second, I would be sorely upset if any more of the music was cut out; I rented the DVD to see a full musical for a fortieth the price, not a destroyed and non-musical movie based on a musical which was originally based on a non-musical movie that was (apparently) great to begin with. And, if the Broadway rendition was much better than this one, it must truly have been magnificent; this one is quite good.… Full Review »
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