| 90 |
New York Magazine
David Denby
Andrew Davis, the director of "The Fugitive," one of the best thrillers of recent years, has added pace and heat and explicit sexuality to the material without whipping up phony excitement.
|
| 80 |
Slate
It has been sexed up, opened out, and finished off with a disappointing bang-bang climax, but it's still good fun.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
I think it works like a nasty little machine to keep us involved and disturbed; my attention never strayed, and one of the elements I liked was the way Paltrow's character isn't sentimentalized.
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
The story has enough nasty twists and tantalizing clues for its ingenious mechanics to remain engaging.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
I've seen far worse thrillers than A Perfect Murder, but the movie is ultimately more competent than pleasurable.
|
| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
By the head-scratching dénouement, the "perfect" in the title seems particularly misplaced. How about Dial M for Muddle.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Sandra Contreras
If the roller-coaster plot twists lose you, there's always the satisfaction of Douglas's take on a script rife with amusing double entendres.
|
| 60 |
Los Angeles Times
A Perfect Murder begins better than it ends, and the pleasures it offers turn out to be more of a transitory nature.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
Hollis Chacona
Tasteful, chilly, and polite, it is foul play at its traditional best: Anglo-Saxon, urban, and upper class.
|
| 50 |
Salon.com
A Perfect Murder is more like a handful of anemic ice cubes floating in a lukewarm puddle.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
This is simply efficient, routine storytelling with a high gloss but an undernourished sense of character.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
The unsatisfying thriller A Perfect Murder is a triumph of style over substance, with style in this case winning only by default.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
There's nothing about this thriller to prevent it from soon becoming enmeshed in the memory with others in which Michael Douglas wears a starched collar and grits his teeth.
|
| 50 |
Variety
Leonard Klady
The dilemma in this Perfect Murder is its singular failure at creating a rooting interest for a character or situation.
|
| 50 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Andrew Davis ("The Fugitive," "Steal Big Steal Little") has made a technically competent thriller that's not only thrill-less, but dull.
|
| 40 |
Film Threat
Anthony Miele
This film once again proves that Hollywood has apparently run out of original ideas and is forced to remake another classic film and, like most Hollywood remakes -- big surprise -- it SUCKS.
|
| 40 |
Washington Post
The trouble is, we don't really much care about this philandering billionaire glamour puss, who seems perfectly capable of taking care of herself. We don't care about her husband or lover either.
|
| 38 |
ReelViews
A Perfect Murder has inexplicably managed to eliminate almost everything that was worthwhile about "Dial M for Murder," leaving behind the nearly-unwatchable wreckage of a would-be '90s thriller.
|
| 38 |
Rolling Stone
What the film lacks is suspense, surprise (the new ending is a dud) and passion.
|
| 30 |
Dallas Observer
The picture's biggest problem is that no one is sympathetic.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Examiner
Barbara Shulgasser
I HATE to whine, but if Michael Douglas is half as tired of playing yuppie scum as I am of watching him do it, then he must be napping on a regular basis by now.
|
| 20 |
Newsweek
All the surprises strenuously cooked up by screenwriter Patrick Smith Kelly and director Andrew ("The Fugitive") Davis can't overcome the movie's inability to make us care about any of its paper-thin characters.
|
