Passion Play 2011

Stephen Holden, New York Times: Conjuring magic, it goes abracadabra and snaps its fingers, but nothing happens. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: You can take the phoenix-rising actor out of straight-to-video trash, but -- well, you know the rest of it. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Every now and then a movie's awfulness rises to the level of mystery. How did it get produced? Did anyone try to save the filmmaker from himself? Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Even those with giant soft spots for beautiful catastrophes will be hard-pressed to find anything to like in Passion Play. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: This underworld fairy tale is so soggy and sentimental it's like a new genre: Hallmark noir. Read more

Ray Bennett, Hollywood Reporter: If the degree of laughter at the wrong moments and the number of walkouts at the Toronto International Film Festival are any indication, the film will appeal only to the most fondly indulgent. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: "Passion Play" would be midnight-movie fodder if it weren't so drearily wrapped up in its wounded-male aesthetic and a clumsy approach to art-movie moodiness that was abandoned in the '80s. Read more

Nick Schager, L.A. Weekly: Mickey Rourke recently made headlines for dubbing Passion Play "a terrible movie," a proclamation that's ultimately most notable for its understatement. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: "It's like a movie," someone says at some point. Yeah, like one. But not quite. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: You can do worse than a movie that features Megan Fox stripped down to her tattoos and Bill Murray as a pinstriped gangster who says things like, "Kill him and bring her back here." Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: The net effect is as if someone had set out to imitate a David Lynch movie without ever having seen one, or as if it had been directed by Wim Wenders (which is approximately the same thing). Read more

John Anderson, Variety: Perversely eccentric and frequently inert, screenwriter Mitch Glazer's directorial debut, Passion Play, will benefit from some of the well-known names attached, but the near-painful hipness of the production will yield poisonous word of mouth. Read more