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Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
New Line Cinema

8.1 based on 16 reviews Read critic reviews How did we calculate this? based on 18 votes Read user comments Rate this movie

FILM:

• Blue Velvet
• Inland Empire
• Lost Highway
• Lynch
• Mulholland Drive
• The Straight Story
• Wild at Heart

• Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, Chris Isaak, Kyle MacLachlan, Moira Kelly, Miguel Ferrer, Kiefer Sutherland, and James Marshall

David Lynch takes us back to the town of damned good cups of coffee and cherry pies in this film prequel to the television series where we actually meet Laura Palmer (Lee) for the first time. Brought in to investigate the mysterious death of nightshift waitress Teresa Banks, special agent Chester Desmond (Isaak) and later Special Agent Dale Cooper (MacLachlan) unravel the bizarre clues, mysterious disappearances, and strange happenings that lead to the last seven days of Laura Palmer's troubled life...and ultimately the killer. (New Line)

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	David Lynch Robet Engels Mark Frost (television series Twin Peaks)
DIRECTED BY:	David Lynch
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 26, 2002  Video: August 29, 1995  Theatrical: August 28, 1992
RUNNING TIME:	135 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...

63

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Though the movie ups the TV ante on nudity, language and violence, Lynch's control falters. But if inspiration is lacking, talent is not.

60

Empire Colin Kennedy

As a movie it was never wholly successful, mainly because it was saddled with all the excesses of the second season of the TV show; but for converts, this is still unmissable.

50

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

The details of this Twin Peaks are slight and repetitious, and their meanings are numbingly obvious. Behind small town America's facade of sweetness and light, there exist darkness and evil-news that is a day late and about $7.50 short. [28 Aug 1992]

50

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

At once hypnotic and baffling, filled with surreal motifs and symbols, Fire Walk With Me could be the most rarefied teen horror film ever made: It's like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.

40

Variety Todd McCarthy

Engagingly intriguing throughout most of its slightly overlong running time, and perhaps the strangely mesmerizing mood Lynch has orchestrated for the entire "Twin Peaks" undertaking should not be underestimated at this juncture. But the feeling persists that, to a considerable degree, Lynch is marking time with this project, creating new riffs and variations on themes he had already largely worked out.

40

Los Angeles Times Michael Wilmington

It's the most outwardly sleazy of all Lynch's movies, the rawest and raunchiest, the least circumspect. Full of striptease and scandal, violence, orgy and feverish nightmare, the movie is a kind of mass opening of the sewers that always lay beneath Twin Peaks' placid streets... But it does cap off a pop-cultural landmark, with all the bad taste and high style required. [31 Aug 1992]

38

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Except for a brief episode in which singer Chris Isaak and Kiefer Sutherland make like an FBI Rocky and Bullwinkle, this is a morbidly joyless affair. You'll feel as drained as one of Cooper's mugs of joe watching homecoming queen Laura drown in a whirlpool of sex and drugs. [31 Aug 1992]

38

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Judged by the standards of ordinary filmmaking, it's as strange, suggestive, and surreal as other Lynch pictures have been. Judged by the standards of Lynch's own career, however, it's amazingly stale and second-hand… [and] contains not a single moment of genuinely felt emotion. [1 Sept 1992]

30

Washington Post Rita Kempley

There's the scene in which Jacques, the French Canadian proprietor of the Power and Glory, tells Laura, "I am the Great Went," to which she responds, "I am the muffin." Jacques returns, "I'm as blank as a fart." Maybe all Jacques is saying is "I am full of gas." Certainly Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me seems to be.

30

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It has its moments, but not many, and generally speaking it runs neck and neck with Dune as the least successful and least interesting Lynch feature.

25

San Francisco Chronicle Michael Snyder

It's all rather haphazard, and fans will wait in vain for Sheriff Harry S Truman, rich girl sexbomb Audrey Horne and the rest, or for more Cooper. Brief bits that avid viewers can understand will render the film incomprehensible to the new viewer. [29 Aug 1992]

20

Time Staff (Not Credited)

After an agonizing first half-hour designed to empty the theater, Lynch unleashes his patented perfervid style, puts the familiar dwarfs and feebs on display and elicits a nicely horrifying turn from Lee. [7 Sept 1992]

20

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Everything is a puzzle and it's as though Lynch lost track of his reasons for making this prequel and got hung up on filming the sordid details that TV won't allow: shots of peeled-back corpse fingernails; close-ups of oscillating uvulas; visions of strange-looking, backward-talking, gyrating weirdos; and uncensored whiffs of sex, cocaine, and families undone.

20

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

While Lynch ladles on the random weirdness around the edges, it is Lee who keeps the film centered, with a harrowing but poignantly sympathetic portrait of a woman's descent into horror and madness.

10

The New York Times Vincent Canby

It's not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be. Its 134 minutes induce a state of simulated brain death, an effect as easily attained in half the time by staring at the blinking lights on a Christmas tree.

0

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

A two- hour-plus surrealistic bummer - it makes the audience feel as if it is coming down from a virulent drug. (The pacing, the images, the music and the endemic menace recall clinical descriptions of cocaine-induced paranoia.)...A disgusting, misanthropic movie.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Pavers gave it an8:
I must admit, the first time I saw this movie I was disappointed. It was the first thing that I watched in the Twin Peaks franchise and now I know that was a mistake. Soon afterwards I purchased the first television series and discovered what all the fuss was about. That series is the best television show I have ever seen. So I tried Fire Walk With Me again and disliked it even more than the first time I watched it. It lacked the charm of the first series and there was so much content that wasn't related to that first series. I ended up getting confused, waiting for the movie to end. Then despite all the negative things I'd heard about the second tv series, I manage to get hold of a copy, and was pleasantly surprised. Though not as strong as the first tv series, the series is still enjoyable. Soon after watching that series, I received a copy of the Fire Walk With Me DVD as a birthday present. Despite having reservations about watching this movie again, I played it last night. And lo and behold after watching every episode of both tv series, everything came together. The whole thing made much more sense... and was a joy to watch. This movie does NOT hold up as a standalone. I feel this is the reason for a lot of the negative reviews. I'd recommend this movie only after watch both series one and series two of the tv series.... then maybe like me, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Erck N gave it a10:
This film is so deep that is leaves the shallow minded all but drowning in its wake. Lynch fans all over call this the worst ever and not just amongst his films but of all cinema (I really cannot figure why even from those whom have given me a superficial reason to call it trash). People looking for an obvious sum will be lost...this is pure art in the highest of forms...it finally takes us to the real underbelly of all the evidence that was exhibited in the series. This is Laura Palmer's story were the series was Cooper's perception of a town where yellow traffic lights mean slow down and not speed up. My advice is just have no expectations. As with any other Lynch film, it's good to view with an open mind and let it just wash over you like a wave of chaos and beauty.

Joris gave it a10:
28??? This is an amazing masterpiece I can't understand why someone wopuldn't like this! As a fan of Twin Peaks I never wanted to see this as I read the reviews. But when I saw it I was completely stunned and overwhelmed by this masterpiece. Fantastic Lynch atmosphere--great scenes with a lot of depth. The David Bowie scene is fantastic and Badalamenti's score adds a lot again to the whole of this.

Tely S. gave it a10:
With his final comment on the world of Twin Peaks he and Mark Frost created, David Lynch pulls a fast one and actually bothers to care about it. It is easy to see why the film was hated so vehemently by critics and fans of the series; the quirk and humor that defined TP for many has been replaced by the most profoundly sad and moving story about incest that will likely ever be made. The film achieves stratospheric levels of depraved, sincere beauty.

Evam W. gave it a9:
This is one of Lynch's all-time best! Sadly, this film has been misunderstood and wrongheadedly compared to the tone of the series. This film peels back the layers of the series to its essence, that which is Laura Palmer's last days. FWWM also deals with what the series could not and this can be, like actress Sheryl Lee said, "very confrontational to certain people." This film IS the heart and soul of Twin Peaks as far as I'm concerned. An incredibly moving and honest film by one of contemporary cinema's most visionary and progressive artists.

Mike S. gave it a3:
I was really disappointed by this movie, and I'm a David Lynch fan!!

donnie d. gave it a1:
Fake and cheap. Acting and Music are rubbish.

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