Critic Reviews
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
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.
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| 90 |
New Times (L.A.)
Think "Basic Instinct" with brains, and you've got it.
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| 80 |
LA Weekly
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.
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| 75 |
Boston Globe
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.
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| 70 |
Variety
Builds and sustains considerable interest through its unexpected characterizations, unusual milieu and atmospheric style.
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| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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.
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| 63 |
New York Daily News
Kelly McGillis quite literally as you've never seen her -- as a manipulative, icy sex goddess in whose bedroom there are no limits.
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| 60 |
Mr. Showbiz
Makes for compulsive viewing.
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| 50 |
TV Guide
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.
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| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Poetry, lesbian sex and murder might be a killer combination if a deadly pace weren't included in the mix.
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| 50 |
Chicago Tribune
It is awkward and dull, a capital crime for an aspiring noir.
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| 50 |
Miami Herald
McGillis, though, is the film's worst enemy. Her wooden attempts to recreate Kathleen Turner circa 1981 undermine too many scenes.
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| 38 |
New York Post
Remarkably sluggish and not particularly suspenseful.
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| 30 |
Austin Chronicle
The Monkey's Mask is filmed with an eye toward an arthouse sheen, although Lang's dramatic pacing is sluggish and dull.
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| 20 |
The New York Times
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.
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| 10 |
Village Voice
The film seems dimly aware of its own ridiculousness, but it lacks the constitution for self-mockery.
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