44
Metascore
30 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversThis one-of-a-kind spellbinder from first-time director Laurence Dunmore is not afraid to shock. Depp is a raunchy wonder, especially in a time-capsule-worthy opening monologue.
- 67Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerChristian Science MonitorPeter RainerAs the depraved John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, Johnny Depp adds yet another sly sleazoid to his burgeoning portrait gallery.
- 63TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghJohnny Depp's coruscating, rigorously uningratiating performance as debauched, self-destructive 17th-century aristocrat John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, is the glue that doesn't quite hold together first-time director Laurence Dunmore's adaptation of Stephen Jeffreys' 1994 play.
- 50VarietyVarietyStarting out seductive but ending up tiresome, debuting director Laurence Dunmore's pic is an honorable misfire.
- 50The New YorkerAnthony LaneThe New YorkerAnthony LaneDeep and Morton are really flying here (the scene in which the hero instructs the heroine in the passionate possibilities of her art), and they leave the rest of the film looking heavy on its feet. The second half, especially, grows dour and maundering, and by the end the movie seems to flail in desperation, more like a work in progress than like a finished piece.
- 50Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonVillage VoiceMichael AtkinsonThe Libertine's trouble lies precisely in its efforts at conjuring the historical past: No one in the film seems much more convinced than I am that because playwrights and authors wrote in clever, high post-Elizabethan diction, then everyone spoke that way every day, in the pubs, with whores.
- 50The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisThe rhythms of the dialogue move to the same beat as steadily as a metronome ticks and tocks, while every sentence is polished like stone, absent the jaggedness of real breath and life. You can hear the play in this thing without even knowing it was based on a theatrical production.
- 38New York Daily NewsJack MathewsNew York Daily NewsJack MathewsNot since Philip Kaufman's 2000 "Quills," the story of the Marquis de Sade, have we had so debauched a literary and movie hero, and Johnny Depp plays him with the relish of an actor who has made odd-ball characters his specialty.
- 20L.A. WeeklyScott FoundasL.A. WeeklyScott FoundasThe picture is an enormous disappointment... The result is one of the most self-consciously grimy movies on record - it looks as if the negative were developed in a mud bath.
- 0Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe Libertine is such a torturous mess that it winds up doing something I hadn't thought possible: It renders Johnny Depp charmless.