| Warner Bros. | Release Date: November 8, 2019 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
24
Mixed:
20
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
Nov 6, 2019
He's (Flanagan) never trying to one-up Kubrick or King. Instead, he's trying to push past his own best work, and he may well have achieved that in one supernatural scene that is as shocking and captivating as the fall of the bent-neck lady. In honoring both Kubrick and King, Flanagan's greatest achievement is not being swallowed by the Overlook's shadow.
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Oct 31, 2019
This is sharp blockbuster filmmaking, coming at a time when IP is seemingly the only thing that gets any door open in Hollywood these days. Rather than churn out something cynical or pandering, though, Flanagan has instead taken that IP and instilled it with heart. Not just the chummy heart he’s hallmarked in past efforts, but the kind that comes from a creator who’s offered a chance to truly honor his influences and run with them.
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Nov 7, 2019
The complex plot takes some time to get used to, especially if you’ve come to the theater expecting a story consistent with the simplicity of “The Shining.” If that was easy as pie, this is easy as Pi. But when it confidently hits its stride near the middle, Doctor Sleep is gripping.
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Nov 7, 2019
Some of the callbacks to “The Shining” are chillingly effective; others felt gratuitous and missed the mark. Still. A tip of the REDRUM to Doctor Sleep and to Ewan McGregor’s memorable performance for giving us the opportunity to catch up with Danny Torrance in a most satisfying manner.
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Nov 7, 2019
A score by the Newton Brothers thumps like an errant heartbeat. The actors sparkle with chemistry. At times, its aesthetic and thematic pursuits click into place and the film sings at a mournful register as it charts the generational trauma and addiction of Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor). But Doctor Sleep proves stronger in parts than as a whole.
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Nov 7, 2019
Ewan McGregor does a solid job as Danny, still shining (i.e. reading minds and performing other freaky feats of the head) after all these years, and Rebecca Ferguson is having a great deal of fun as his new nemesis, driving across the country sucking souls and finding new and inventive ways of wearing chapeaus.
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Nov 6, 2019Movie NationNov 6, 2019
There’s a lot going on here, none of it terribly deep. But Doctor Sleep still makes a worthy successor to “The Shining,” that rarest of sequels driven by genuine curiosity and fascination with characters and their continuing story and not by corporate bean counters and their bottom line cynicism.
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Oct 30, 2019
It doesn’t have Jack Nicholson, Stanley Kubrick or even much of the Overlook Hotel, but Rebecca Ferguson and other good actors provide some shine of their own in Doctor Sleep, a drawn-out and seldom pulse-quickening follow-up to The Shining that still has enough going on to forestall any audience slumber.
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IndieWireOct 30, 2019
Doctor Sleep shows considerable effort to ingratiate itself to discerning cinephiles, from the moody Newton Brothers score to cinematographer Michael Fimognari’s dark blue nighttime palette; as a whole, the movie conjures an eerie and wondrous atmosphere that blends abject terror with a somber, mournful quality unique to Flanagan’s oeuvre. But his pandering to dueling source material results in a jagged puzzle beneath both of their standards.
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Nov 7, 2019
This screen adaptation feels like a clumsy hybrid. It’s a little too long and winding to work as a feature film, especially in the horror genre, and might have worked better as a limited series, with a little more room for the many characters who populate its grimly imagined American landscape.
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Nov 6, 2019
PolygonNov 22, 2019
Flanagan’s sister piece ensures that its underlying meaning is as close to the surface as the shallow grave discovered in the second act. Flanagan chose to make Doctor Sleep utterly banal. Through means straightforward and blunt, he’s turned a surreal simulation of succumbing to insanity into a plainly stated reminder to always be true to yourself.
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Nov 6, 2019
A soul-killing sequel that gets its kicks torturing and murdering children and offers little hope or redemption. King has long wanted to commit “Redrum” on the reputation of Kubrick’s film, which he openly despises. Nearly 40 years later, this adaptation of King’s 2013 book “Doctor Sleep” doesn’t so much tarnish Kubrick as embarrass itself.
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