| 100 |
Mr. Showbiz
Stomps the summer movie competition with heart and humor.
|
| 100 |
Salon.com
The sight of Hedwig and his band transforming a trashy trailer into a glitter-rock stage during "Wig in a Box" was so exhilarating I almost leapt out of my seat. The movie is pure theater, as it should be.
|
| 100 |
Portland Oregonian
Builds into a moment of such gorgeous rocking that you truly lose yourself in some musical otherworld you never dreamed you'd reach in current films.
|
| 100 |
Washington Post
The story is told so passionately that it demands as much of you as it does of its performers, all of whom are up there, giving everything.
|
| 100 |
Los Angeles Times
On the screen, the rip-roaring rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch retains all the excitement and energy it had on stage while adding depth, clarity and emotional texture.
|
| 100 |
LA Weekly
Mitchell retools his play magnificently, opening it up into a vibrant cinematic work.
|
| 100 |
The New York Times
Clever, funny, wildly innovative film.
|
| 100 |
Washington Post
The film's not only funny and weird, it's oddly poignant. I miss Hedwig already.
|
| 100 |
Wall Street Journal
Ed Epstein
This extraordinary flight from the humdrum is not to be missed.
|
| 91 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
John Cameron Mitchell credits Plato as the inspiration for his rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Now Mitchell has turned his play into a raucous, touching celebration of a film.
|
| 91 |
Entertainment Weekly
Mitchell directs and stars in the riotous, loving, and only occasionally pathos-milking film adaptation of his own acclaimed Off Broadway play, with great up-your-ante music and lyrics by Stephen Trask.
|
| 90 |
New Times (L.A.)
Offers an enormous amount of pure silly fun for the entire non-nuclear family, no matter what gender they may be.
|
| 90 |
Rolling Stone
Mitchell gives this post-punk, neo-glam rock extravaganza everything in his loaded arsenal of talents. He gets the sound right, the look right, the fun right and - this is crucial - the pain right.
|
| 90 |
Chicago Reader
Mitchell, who also directed and wrote the screenplay, originally created this glorious rock opera for the stage with composer-lyricist Stephen Trask.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
If you thought ''Moulin Rouge,'' or, for that matter, ''Tommy,'' was trippy, Hedwig, with its glorious convergence of material and performer, will show you what you've been missing.
|
| 88 |
Baltimore Sun
This is Mitchell's show, and his performance lives up to his triple billing as writer, director and star.
|
| 88 |
New York Post
It's a positive hat trick by John Cameron Mitchell.
|
| 88 |
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Wildly witty, but also inventive, audacious and poignant.
|
| 80 |
TV Guide
Ever hear of a rock musical that actually rocked? John Cameron Mitchell's glorious adaptation of his acclaimed Off-Broadway show might be a first.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Cameron's imaginative directing and screen-shaking performance give this rock musical plenty of oomph.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
The production is fantastically funny, high-energy camp, punctuated by Trask's infectious score and by Mitchell, dressing in a succession of wigs twice the size of his body.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Carla Meyer
Falters in its final 15 minutes, when the funny lines peter out and the flashbacks get fuzzy.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
This drag-queen melodrama, like its star, perseveres.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
There's a lot more at work in this raucously entertaining movie than cross-dressing clichés.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
There's some kind of pulse of sincerity beating below the glittering surface, and it may come from Mitchell's own life story.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
(Mitchell's) Hansel may be small-boned and soft-featured in an androgynous way, but his Hedwig is a force of nature, burned out and jaded yet brimming with compassion and bursting with energy.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
A screen spectacle that beseeches its audience for adoration and mass acceptance.
|
| 50 |
Variety
Despite some imaginative packaging too often proves a drag in more than the sartorial sense. Taking Mitchell's sketchy book far too seriously, the movie grows leaden between its terrific songs.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
It's this strategy (however unconscious), and not simply a lack of directing talent, that makes Hedwig so relentlessly assaultive, heavy-handed, and emotionally monochromatic.
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