|

New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search
Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

34
10,000 B.C.
37
Air I Breathe, The
52
Be Kind Rewind
47
Boarding Gate
46
Bonneville
42
Bucket List, The
70
Caramel
49
Cassandra's Dream
44
Chaos Theory
54
Charlie Bartlett
64
Chronicle of an Escape
63
City of Men
78
Control
66
Darfur Now
59
Definitely, Maybe
41
Drillbit Taylor
36
Eye, The
46
Finishing the Game
35
Flakes
38
Flash Point
57
Flawless
29
Fool's Gold
41
Funny Games
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
65
Grace Is Gone
57
Hammer, The
68
Honeydripper
67
In Bruges
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
35
Jumper
9
Meet the Spartans
52
My Blueberry Nights
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
50
Other Boleyn Girl, The
90
Persepolis
44
Rails & Ties
46
Rambo
36
Remember the Daze
47
Semi-Pro
24
Sex and Death 101
76
Shotgun Stories
63
Signal, The
62
Spiderwick Chronicles, The
12
Strange Wilderness
45
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
59
Under the Same Moon
40
Vantage Point
55
Walker, The
37
War, Inc.
46
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
60
What Would Jesus Buy?
51
Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
17
Witless Protection
90
Persepolis
78
Control
76
Shotgun Stories
70
Caramel
68
Honeydripper
67
In Bruges
66
Darfur Now
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
65
Grace Is Gone
64
Chronicle of an Escape
63
City of Men
63
Signal, The
62
Spiderwick Chronicles, The
60
What Would Jesus Buy?
59
Under the Same Moon
59
Definitely, Maybe
57
Flawless
57
Hammer, The
55
Walker, The
54
Charlie Bartlett
52
Be Kind Rewind
52
My Blueberry Nights
51
Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
50
Other Boleyn Girl, The
49
Cassandra's Dream
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
Boarding Gate
47
Semi-Pro
46
Finishing the Game
46
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
46
Bonneville
46
Rambo
45
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
44
Rails & Ties
44
Chaos Theory
42
Bucket List, The
41
Funny Games
41
Drillbit Taylor
40
Vantage Point
38
Flash Point
37
Air I Breathe, The
37
War, Inc.
36
Remember the Daze
36
Eye, The
35
Jumper
35
Flakes
34
10,000 B.C.
29
Fool's Gold
24
Sex and Death 101
17
Witless Protection
12
Strange Wilderness
9
Meet the Spartans
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Mothman Prophecies, The
Screen Gems Inc.
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for terror, some sexuality and language
Starring
Richard Gere,
Laura Linney,
Will Patton,
Debra Messing,
Shane Callahan,
Nesbitt Blaisdell,
Dan Callahan,
and
David Eigenberg
A suspense-filled thriller about a man (Gere) driven to extremes to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his wife's death -- and how they might be connected to the strange phenomena in a town four hundred miles away. (Screen Gems)
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Richard Hatem
John A. Keel (novel)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Mark Pellington
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: June 4, 2002
Video: June 4, 2002
Theatrical: January 25, 2002
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
119 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
90
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
This is the scariest movie I've ever seen.

90
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
One truly, madly, deeply satisfying creep-out.

83
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
It's made with deftly unsettling genre flair.

80
Film Threat
Gareth Von Kallenbach
An entertaining and chilling film that will make you question what you believe about myths and the supernatural.

80
LA Weekly
F. X. Feeney
Pellington's sharp, fastball compositions and nerve-splintering cutting style are of a piece with such intelligence, devilishly mixing shock with optimism.

80
Newsweek
David Ansen
Using shadows and strikingly designed sounds, Pellington skillfully creates an atmosphere of otherworldly, invisible menace. Gere and Linney, both solid, dance around the edges of a romance.
75
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
Better than its trailers indicate. Forget the seemingly silly Chapstick moment: Any film that sends a cold shock to your system is doing something right.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Like a time-travel movie, but without the time travel, The Mothman Prophecies delights in playing with cause-and-effect relationships.

75
USA Today
Mike Clark
Compellingly watchable horror-spectacle.

75
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
By the end, an end that has a little too much melodrama to it, we can only shake our heads in wonder.

63
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
As the plot loses steam, director Mark Pellington (whose paranoid thriller "Arlington Road" was one of the worst movies of 1999) tends to rely on cheap tricks to maintain suspense, although the final catastrophe is very nicely done.

60
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
The creepy set pieces are repetitive and the payoff is rather unsatisfying, even though the prophecies do eventually pan out.

58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ellen A. Kim
It would have made for a cool fictional thriller, but The Mothman Prophecies' attempt to stick to true-life roots paralyzes it from being satisfying. It gives you the tingles all right, but they won't follow you out of the theater.

50
Variety
Robert Koehler
Director Mark Pellington hardly lets a moment pass without suggesting some bad vibes creeping onto the edges of the screen, but he's let down by Richard Hatem's script, based on John A. Keel's book, which delivers an ounce when it promised a gallon.

50
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Despite moments of atmospheric tension and a core of compelling mystery, the film feels remote, cold and, oddly, obvious.

50
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Almost sinks under the weight of too many red herrings, but is rescued by a skewed sense of reality and pervasive sense of dread that should keep audiences from dwelling on them.
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
The result is a minor picture with a major identity crisis -- it's sort of true and it's sort of bogus and it's ho-hum all the way through.

50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Watching the film is like getting hooked by a fearful angler who can't successfully reel you in.
50
Los Angeles Times
Jan Stuart
There is very little about the hoary conventions of The Mothman Prophecies that couldn't be improved by a little levity, a little more sunlight and some judicious cutting.

50
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
The movie goes after our dreams by dragging them through our Sept. 11 nightmares with an apocalyptic finale so ludicrous, overedited, and from out of nowhere that it's hard to follow, let alone to believe it's happening.

50
Time
Richard Schickel
Director Pellington's touch is light and flickering, and his actors are solid and persuasive. If you let yourself go with The Mothman Prophecies, it is -- in its lumpen, serious way -- sort of fun.
50
New Times (L.A.)
Andy Klein
Enjoyable, if utterly stupid, upscale entry in the old Amityville Horror genre -- that is, a horror film allegedly based on spooky and inexplicable real-life events.

50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The Mothman is singularly ineffective as a threat because it is only vaguely glimpsed, has no nature we can understand, doesn't operate under rules that the story can focus on, and seems to be involved in space-time shifts far beyond its presumed focus. There is also the problem that insects make unsatisfactory villains unless they are very big.

50
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
About as threatening as the real-life insect the apparition resembles; its large, mossy wings may scare some people, but the bug can only damage your woolens. The movie flirts with more damage than it can actually cause.

50
San Francisco Chronicle
Carla Meyer
So restrained that viewers may start to yearn for a bogeyman to burst from the closet.

40
Village Voice
Mark Holcomb
A diverting pulp time-waster.

40
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Movies like this have been around forever too. They're a normal condition of winter's doldrums, which, in the fullness of time, will pass.
40
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Snail-paced and ultimately dull creepy-crawl.

40
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Nonetheless, the film never amounts to more than the sum of a few good moments, and it leaves the aftertaste of a second-tier X-Files episode.

38
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
A gaudy yet grim science-fiction horror movie of such surpassing silliness, humorless intensity and stylistic overkill that watching it may actually put you in a state of paranoia.

38
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Gere, who's credited with keeping the project alive for years, has never thrown himself quite so fully into a role, and Pellington tells the story without a hint of skepticism. I suppose he had no choice. If you're going to treat poppycock as history, you had better believe it.

30
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
This mumbo-jumbo plays like The X Files on Prozac. No wonder the actors look narcotized.


The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 20 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Read more user comments...
Discuss this movie in our forums |
|