| 88 |
New York Daily News
For the initiated, the third time's a charm. For everyone else, it's just a scream.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
It's a pleasant surprise to note how good Scream 3 really is.
|
| 80 |
Variety
A crafty and well-crafted wrap-up that really does bring a satisfying sense of closure to the franchise.
|
| 80 |
Los Angeles Times
Genuinely scary and also highly amusing.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
It's a pleasure to report that Scream 3 is an absolute riot, jammed with spicy cameos.
|
| 80 |
Salon.com
I enjoyed every moment of this densely plotted final chapter, and most other fans will too.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
Funny and brisk, with enough good lines to make the comedy more satisfying than the somewhat routine but still unsettling jolts to the spine.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
(Craven) and his Scream dream team have done a frightfully good job of killing off and wrapping up the popular horror series.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Jim Peterson
Scream 3 also has wit and intelligence, but at their core the Scream movies are still slasher films and this one is no exception.
|
| 70 |
Slate
A lot more fun than "Blair Witch," and it's more relaxed and goofy than its two predecessors -- a farcical bloodbath.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
But it IS enjoyable.
|
| 70 |
Washington Post
It's plenty entertaining, but the ending is disappointing, given the buildup.
|
| 63 |
New York Post
It's the chemistry between the Arquettes (they met on the first film and married after the second) and their rapport with Campbell that sustains Scream 3 through its overly convoluted plot.
|
| 63 |
San Francisco Examiner
At its savviest, Scream 3 is a cheeky conceptual conceit, cheaply executed for the sake of achieving trilogy status. Instead, it's like a carnival that's been in town a week too long.
|
| 63 |
Miami Herald
Just isn't very scary.
|
| 60 |
Time
Not so good is the absence of hip cross-references to the classic horror tropes.
|
| 50 |
Baltimore Sun
Even if Scream 3 lacks the punch and verve of the first two installments, it manages to wring some ironically metaphysical comedy from the movie-within-a-movie motif.
|
| 50 |
Entertainment Weekly
About the only thing the movie kills with any decisiveness is your time.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Essentially an interlacing of irony and gotcha! Scenes.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Tribune
Marc Caro
Although Scream 3 is often clever in the way it interweaves the worlds of "Scream," "Stab" and life outside the theater, it's not exactly groundbreaking.
|
| 50 |
Film.com
Simply can't sustain interest for much of its final hour.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
Where Scream 3 triumphs is in its wacky, take-no-prisoners, I am a Juggernaut of Terror, Hee, Hee attitude, which wisely makes room for some downright surreal moments amongst the carnage.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Campy, overwrought and gleefully cannibalistic in the way it references and regurgitates horror flicks of yore, Scream 3 fulfills its modest ambitions by delivering a glib slasher spoof for the mall crowd.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
Slower, more earnest, and not as gory.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
It's got turns, it's got an attractive cast that gets shish-kabobed with ruthless regularity. It's just tired.
|
| 38 |
Boston Globe
A lame little flat liner.
|
| 38 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
At 116 minutes, this third installment lumbers along like a serial killer in shackles.
|
| 38 |
Charlotte Observer
Cowardice and cliché - not a tasty combination.
|
| 33 |
Portland Oregonian
What's left is a husk with all the superficial features of a Scream movie and none of the heart, brains, guts or laughs.
|
| 30 |
Dallas Observer
It's time to run, screaming.
|
| 30 |
TNT RoughCut
First rule of a film trilogy: Part 3 sucks. See "The Godfather 3,"" Alien 3,"" Jaws 3." Even "Return of the Jedi" was just a rehash of "Star Wars" with muppets. Add Scream 3 to that trend.
|
| 30 |
Village Voice
Logic, motivation, suspense -- anything that might make the film frightening or resonant -- is buried under Dolby blams, medulla-shaming dialogue, and a rain of overdubbed hunting-knife schwings that grate like a 3 a.m. car alarm.
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