Swept Away

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Ritchie made a movie that never pretends to be more than a guilty pleasure of soft-core kitsch, and Madonna and Giannini (son of Giancarlo, costar of the original) achieve a lively S&M chemistry.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

At its best, Swept Away is like a scrapbook of postcards starring two lovebirds with great tans.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Madonna herself is not so much terrible as merely uninvolving. She's quite credible as the harpy of the first act, but she can't pull off the transition and the spark that makes a movie star instantly sympathetic.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The effectiveness of this kind of issue-driven give and take relies heavily on casting, and Ritchie puts himself at a disadvantage: Madonna looks terrific in a bikini but she can't act, and the younger Giannini is stunt casting.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Schizoid romantic comedy -- The first half of the movie is full of broad but capable comedy, but the original film's sexual and class politics are clumsily handled, and the mood turns serious with all the subtlety of a falling guillotine blade.

Variety Dennis Harvey

A simple misfire rather than a world-class fiasco. This misguided attempt to remake Lina Wertmuller's corrosive 1974 satire as a wistful romance is only unintentionally funny in the last reel.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

One hopes that this is Hollywood's last go-round with Swept Away. Watching this fiasco, I kept having nightmares about a possible cartoon version, co-starring Cruella de Vil and Shrek.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The fact that Swept Away got made at all implies there simply is no dissuading Madonna from her movie-star aspirations. Her tenacity is admirable, but it's also block-headed.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A bad movie. No amount of perfume sprayed on talk show audiences by Madonna and her husband can eliminate the stench of failure emanating from this motion picture.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Madonna may be better in this film than she's been in some of her recent endeavors, especially when she stops screeching her lines, but she's done herself no favors with her choice of material.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

For starters, it blows. Madonna continues to mistake a knack for striking poses with the interpretive skill of a real actor.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A deserted island movie during which I desperately wished the characters had chosen one movie to take along if they were stranded on a deserted island, and were showing it to us instead of this one.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

No less laughable is the ending, where Ritchie neatly reflects today's prevailing attitude -- that audiences can't be trusted to handle a hint of ambiguity, but can live happily with flat-out stupidity.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The junior Giannini, who has inherited Giancarlo's handsome looks, portrays his mercurial character with energy and flair. Madonna doesn't. Indeed, it's hard to remember the last time a certified celebrity gave a performance so monotonous, unimaginative, and all-around tiresome to watch.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

At no point should anyone mistake this for an actual movie. This is an extended beach video that will leave no one swept away.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

There is no credible feeling here, no comedy, no eroticism.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Merely an indulgent vehicle for Mrs. Ritchie -- and Madonna is so spectacularly convincing as a hateful, self-absorbed, nouveau riche ogress that her character's third-act transformation is as preposterous as her overmuscled physique.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

Suggests that we're supposed to take this love story as something more than farce. Please. Tom Hanks fucking that volleyball would have been more convincing.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Ritchie's frivolous comedy tries to have it both ways, thinning out the material for mass consumption while still sticking to the script -- an unstable alchemy that backfires horribly.

Newsweek Jeff Giles

It stinks. The movie is so inert -- and Madonna’s performance so starkly amateurish -- that it’s impossible to take it seriously as an allegory about class and gender.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Isn't dubbed. But it sure feels like it. The characters open their mouths and their lips don't seem to be shaping the right words -- you can't believe any human beings would ever utter such ludicrous dialogue, with so little conviction.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The film turns out to have nothing going for it at all, except a small charge for soul-deep Madonna haters.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

If you were expecting Ritchie to discover something in Madonna that no one else has, something like, say, acting talent, forget it.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

It certainly didn't take long for Madonna to ruin husband Guy Ritchie's career.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Even camp status eludes this tepid and misguided picture.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Not as bad as rumor would have it. It's worse.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A shrill, amateurish two-character play that demeans women and leaves men with the quaint notion that the best way to a woman's heart is through enslavement.