| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
W., a biography of President Bush, is fascinating. No other word for it.
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| 88 |
Charlotte Observer
You'll be disappointed if you expect famed leftist Oliver Stone to apply a coup de grace to this man.
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| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seems a much more even-handed and thoughtful take on the man than anyone might have expected.
|
| 80 |
New York Daily News
A measured and thoughtful meditation on a leader who, this terrific movie believes, inadvertently made the world as roiling as his soul.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
The pleasure of Mr. Stone's work has never been located in restraint but in excess, a commitment to extremes that can drown out the world or, as in this film, give it newly vivid, hilarious and horrible form.
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| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
In the end, W. makes up in immediacy what it lacks in objectivity.
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| 75 |
New York Post
An often compelling, tragicomic psychological analysis of Dubya, viewed through the prism of his relationship with an allegedly disapproving father.
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| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
In the end it depicts its subject as lost, and pitiable--like Richard Nixon, but more a pawn than a dark knight.
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| 75 |
USA Today
The performances are good (some scarily realistic), and the movie is enjoyable to watch. But as a probing analysis of the 43rd president, it falls short.
|
| 70 |
Slate
Dana Stevens
Like Tina Fey's Sarah Palin, Stone's George Bush gets his best lines straight from the source.
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| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
W. is not a dispassionate biography; it is an interpretation of personality intersecting with history, and as a piece of drama it is persuasive and perfectly creditable.
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| 63 |
Boston Globe
When it works, W. can take your breath away. When it doesn't, you can feel Stone still working out his feelings toward the man.
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| 63 |
Miami Herald
Passably interesting, occasionally riveting and largely superfluous. But it's certainly a worthwhile curiosity, and it's not what anyone expected. At the movies these days, that alone is worth something.
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| 63 |
Rolling Stone
Whatever you think of Dubya, he has balls. The movie doesn't.
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| 60 |
Newsweek
Like all Stone movies, W. has energy and forward momentum--particularly in the pre-presidential sections, when Bush is in his loose-cannon phase. It's not boring, and Brolin is often remarkable.
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| 60 |
Film Threat
Don R. Lewis
W. is the kind of film that demands discussion and only then can we start to decipher what Stone's intentions are towards our President.
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| 60 |
Salon.com
It's when Stone engages in shameless editorializing -- when he lets his freak-flag point of view fly, rather than tempering it -- that W. is most entertaining and most vital. The rest of the time it feels too much like awards bait: stiff, arch and knowing.
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| 60 |
NPR
A surprisingly unsurprising film.
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| 58 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Stone paddles down the giant river of Bush's life without exploring any of the tributaries; he passes by two or three dozen better movies along the way.
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| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
The intrepid one is the outstanding Josh Brolin, who does such a phenomenal job in the title role that he carries every scene he's in to a place of subtlety and integrity far beyond what Stone needs to make his attention-grabbing noise.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
Josh Rosenblatt
In our age of 24-hour news coverage, this rehashing of current events doesn't just come off familiar but completely unnecessary. And, worst of all, prosaic.
|
| 50 |
Wall Street Journal
In spite of Josh Brolin's heroic efforts, W. is a skin-deep biopic that revels in its antic shallowness.
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| 50 |
ReelViews
Superficial, uninformative, and inert, this two hour snoozefest isn't even inflammatory enough to stoke a righteous anti-Bush brushfire. W. does for recent history what Oliver Stone's epic "Alexander" did for ancient times.
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| 50 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Unlike the filmmaker's previous stabs at presidential biopic-ing and conspiracy theorizing - "JFK" and "Nixon" - this one doesn't have the luxury of historical perspective.
|
| 50 |
The Hollywood Reporter
It's a gutsy movie but not necessarily a good one. Its greatest strength is that it wants to talk about what's on our minds right now and not wait for historians.
|
| 50 |
Variety
For a film that could have been either a scorching satire or an outright tragedy, W. is, if anything, overly conventional, especially stylistically.
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| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
None of it is new, nor is the recycled stuff presented in a newly revealing context.
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| 50 |
Chicago Reader
It's most entertaining for its stunt casting of movie stars as the president's family and advisers.
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| 42 |
Christian Science Monitor
Stone may think he's made a movie about the toxicity of the Bush presidency, but what we have instead is a cautionary tale of a decidedly lower order. As far as I can make out, the real message of W. is: Don't vote for anybody who talks with his mouth full of food.
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| 40 |
New York Magazine
W. isn't gripping enough as drama or witty enough as satire. It's neutered.
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| 40 |
The New Yorker
Richard Dreyfuss, hunching over and baring his teeth like a shark cruising off a Martha's Vineyard beach, does a wicked impersonation of Cheney. His relish for the part suggests that the movie should have been done not as an earnest bio-pic but as a satirical comedy -- as a contemporary "Dr. Strangelove," with a cast of satyrs and clowns.
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| 40 |
Empire
Helen O'Hara
Disappointing. Stone whipped this out in time for the US Presidential election, but it’s hard to see how it’ll make any significant impact on voters. Or why it even should.
|
| 40 |
Washington Post
Why this movie -- a rushed, wildly uneven, tonally jumbled caricature -- and why now?
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| 40 |
Village Voice
A painful movie to endure.
|
| 40 |
Time
The movie is an X-ray of an invisible man -- by the film's end, the W. still stands for Who?
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| 38 |
Baltimore Sun
The movie plays like a dunk-the-clown game at a carnival. Through intent or ineptitude, he sets up the Bush family and administrations as caricatures.
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