The Weather Man
Metascore
61 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 37 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 37
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 37
  3. Negative: 3 out of 37
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    This film has moments of uncommon observation and touching insight.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    88
    In The Weather Man, Nicolas Cage, a great oddball movie star who sometimes takes enormous risks, has a good, risky part again.
  3. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    80
    The Weather Man begs to be taken seriously and can't easily be dismissed; it kicks around in your mind for a good long while after you've seen it. Cage, who does his finest work since "Leaving Las Vegas," has stripped himself bare of the patented tics and mannerisms he honed in one Jerry Bruckheimer movie too many.
  4. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    80
    Written by Steve Conrad, this is the smartest script director Gore Verbinski has ever had, and he makes the most of it, aided by a strong cast.
  5. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    75
    This is the sort of small, intimate movie that, if it had been made on a low budget by independent actors, would be celebrated to the skies.
  6. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    75
    It works as an intriguingly offbeat character study while offering Nicolas Cage a chance to show why he used to be considered one of the top actors of his generation.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    75
    Heartfelt and often very funny.
  8. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    75
    Reaction to The Weather Man may depend upon an individual's ability to tolerate spending 100 minutes in the company of an unpleasant protagonist. There's no doubt this can be an uncomfortable experience, but it can also be rewarding for those who are willing to endure the discomfort.
  9. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    75
    The movie gives actors many chances to shine, and they do. But I went away most impressed with Verbinski.
  10. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    75
    The film is certainly worth seeing, but it should be better than it is.
  11. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Winda Benedetti
    75
    Cage trots out all of this character's flaws in a form so raw and true you can't help but cringe in your seat as he careens from one self-inflicted interpersonal failure to another.
  12. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    70
    The scenes between Cage and Caine are by far the film's most affecting. The two men don't seem to share the same gene pool, which only helps their dynamic.
  13. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    70
    The most supremely odd American film of the year.
  14. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    70
    The Weather Man is not the wacky movie Paramount is selling, nor is it cynical Oscar bait. It's just a little movie about little people trying not to get wet or freeze to death or get burned when they walk outside, and good luck with all that.
  15. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    70
    A surprisingly wry, contemplative movie.
  16. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    A fine movie, beautifully acted, but it isn't easy to love--or to watch. It's a parade of miseries, made even more miserable by Gore Verbinski's direction.
  17. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    70
    Shines the light on a special kind of heroism -- the guts to face up to yourself and make changes. What makes this so emotionally compelling is the way Dave scrambles from this deep vale of cluelessness to something approaching moral maturity.
  18. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    70
    The director, Gore Verbinski, would seem to be an odd man for this material, but he and Steven Conrad hold their ground, sticking to their conviction that Dave's story should play as a belated-coming-of-age movie.
  19. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    67
    Screenwriter Steve Conrad has less success with the female characters: The always dependable Davis is forced into shrewish territory, and David's mother (Judith McConnell) is so barely present that it's a wonder she's written in at all.
  20. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    63
    This is one glum outing, with occasional pings of wry wit and hearty chuckles.
  21. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    60
    In The Weather Man, Nicolas Cage doesn't so much play a protagonist, warts and all, as he plays a protagonist who is all warts.
  22. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Pete Vonder Haar
    60
    What ultimately keeps The Weather Man from being a better film than it is that it doesn't no when to quit.
  23. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    60
    Neither the screenplay nor the direction has the requisite depth to turn the banality of one unremarkable life into the stuff of Chekhov, much less of Mr. Payne.
  24. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    58
    A sour, deflating and ultimately unlikable black comedy about how awful life can be.
  25. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    58
    The movie mostly proves that cutting-edge humiliations are best absorbed in 25-minute segments on HBO.
  26. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    50
    Cage works hard to find traces of humanity in a man that God forgot, as do screenwriter Steven Conrad and director Gore Verbinski. But in the face of a character no one cares about, can audiences be faulted for asking: Why should we?
  27. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    50
    Nicolas Cage does such a persuasive job of portraying Chicago TV weatherman Dave Spritz as a train wreck of a guy that you wonder whether this might actually be a training film for a psychoanalytic convention on hopeless cases.
  28. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    50
    The Weather Man belongs to a school of earnest, artsy Hollywood flicks that includes the Michael Douglas-goes-bonkers "Falling Down," and a lineage that goes back to revered 1970s pics like "Five Easy Pieces."
  29. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    50
    Dave is one of the most ineffectual characters ever to have an entire movie built around him.
  30. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    50
    Their movie is cold, and I mean that not as a weather pun, but in the sense that it's impossible to warm up to a character who sees the awful things happening around him strictly in terms of how they affect him.
  31. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    50
    The Weather Man is what indie misery looks like when re-created by one of Hollywood's big studios.
  32. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    50
    There are moments when Cage (with his perpetually worried eyebrows) and Caine (with his inherent emotional elegance) carry the picture admirably enough.
  33. Variety
    Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    50
    Aiming for an Alexander Payne-style synthesis of wry comedy and unflinching character study, pic has been made with the utmost sincerity, but the frankly lugubrious material and barely compensating spasms of humor are all but impossible to warm to.
  34. Empire
    Reviewed by: Simon Braund
    40
    The film's chill seeps into your bones like a ceaseless cold drizzle. It also suffers from uncomfortably weird tonal shifts.
  35. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Stephen Cole
    38
    One of those purposefully glum studies in alienation that Hollywood occasionally produces as blue-state specials for disenchanted liberals.
  36. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    30
    A guaranteed downer that's devoid of any upside, and free of dangerously entertaining side effects.
    All this critic's reviews
  37. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    25
    Meet American Beastly, perhaps the most bitter studio film of the year.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.5 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 53 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 32
  3. Negative: 5 out of 32
  1. mytwocents
    8
    Recently noticed that this was one of the top streaming selections on Netflix -- seven years after it came out. So I think my sense that this would be a sleeper has been vindicated. After four viewings it is still laugh out loud funny, largely because of the usual passion Cage brings to the part. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the movie is that Spritz, bedeviled by his sense of mediocrity, is actually the least complacent character in a sea of dreary mediocrities. (Pulitzer Prize? Please. Does his estranged wife with the big sad house write sci-fi novels? What about her new blob of a suitor?) I think Ebert had it right -- this is a film about a person who thinks that the standard American measures of success are bunk. But he can't escape from the shadow of his menacing father, who, to his credit, admits in the final scenes that his "like a rock" life hasn't been worth as much as his son thinks it might have.

    The film has its false notes -- the creepy counselor scenes and the whole "camel toe" excursion -- but on the whole there's something transcendent about it.    … Full Review »
  2. DP.
    2
    This movie is nothing but a vehicle for blatant advertising of fast food. The ads are totally distracting from the otherwise plausible acting. I do not recommend this movie.… Full Review »
  3. EconomistBR
    9
    Very funny movie, great dialogues, and nice adult drama. Cage was great in it. Like the user Holly C said: it's a "raw-life story".
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