Critic Reviews

Carnage (2003) Rank 5 Reviews

Expert Review Summary

Movie critics combined give Carnage (2003) a score of 2.9815 out of 4

based on (13) reviews

Click on the numbers to the right of the graph to see reviews of that rating

Excellent

(4)

Very Good

(7)

Good

(1)

Fair

(1)

Poor

(0)

Reviews by Score:

San Francisco Chronicle (Jonathan Curiel)

A wonderful French offering whose jumping-off point is a bullfight. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at San Francisco Chronicle (Jonathan Curiel)

Salon.com (Andrew O'Hehir)

What emerges is an astonishing debut, unlike anything else you'll see this year. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at Salon.com (Andrew O'Hehir)

Premiere (Aaron Hillis)

A truly remarkable and compassionate debut from a savvy, self-confident filmmaker. No bull. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at Premiere (Aaron Hillis)

Chicago Tribune (Robert K. Elder)

Confidently directed and tightly constructed, Carnage announces the presence of a fresh, powerful directorial mind with each frame. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at Chicago Tribune (Robert K. Elder)

The New York Times (A.O. Scott)

Ms. Gleize, through a series of oblique, half-comic scenes and meticulous, rhyming visual compositions, offers up an elegant, discursive essay on carnality and carnivorousness -- on sex, death, meat and the ravening hunger for companionship. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at The New York Times (A.O. Scott)

Los Angeles Times (Manohla Dargis)

There's undeniable pathos to many of these encounters, and because the director has a wonderful feel for color and knows how to throw a frame around the world, there's also unmistakable beauty. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at Los Angeles Times (Manohla Dargis)

Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan)

A gorgeously morbid meditation on the interconnectivity of life. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan)

TV Guide (Ken Fox)

The film becomes a complex tissue of intersecting lives, but Gleize handles each developing story with amazing ease, and the fabulist touches are the icing on a very tasty cake. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at TV Guide (Ken Fox)

The Onion (A.V. Club) (Noel Murray)

Gleize establishes her multiple plotlines fairly cleanly, though once disentangled, the individual stories don't offer enough incident to be meaningful. They don't mean that much all put together, either, but Carnage is still highly watchable, thanks to ...read the complete Carnage movie review at The Onion (A.V. Club) (Noel Murray)

Chicago Reader (Staff (Not credited))

This is certainly well executed, with a sense of fate and fancy akin to Pedro Almodovar's, but its glibness began to wear on me after the agonizing death of a Great Dane was played for laughs. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at Chicago Reader (Staff (Not credited))

Boston Globe (Ty Burr)

It's a treat, nevertheless, to watch the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni in a rare leading role. Chiara Mastroianni has her mother's hair and face with her father's sorrowful eyes stuck smack in the middle, and she moves as if ...read the complete Carnage movie review at Boston Globe (Ty Burr)

The Hollywood Reporter (Frank Scheck)

The episodes are uninteresting and the characters one-dimensional. Unlike the multicharacter tapestries of such filmmakers as Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson, the pretentious whole here is ultimately less than the sum of the parts. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at The Hollywood Reporter (Frank Scheck)

Variety (David Rooney)

Audience patience undergoes a far more brutal butchering than anything onscreen in Delphine Gleize's wildly over-reaching feature debut, Carnage. ...read the complete Carnage movie review at Variety (David Rooney)