The Rum Diary 2011

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: An agreeable time-waster for the onlookers and its star. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: "Rum" is certainly very funny in spots, but it's also disjointed and unfocused to a point of aimlessness. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It flirts with becoming a great journalism tale, or at least a whimsical journalism tale, but that vein leads nowhere, too. Nor is it much of anything else, except a disordered ramble through Thompson's creative imagination. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: It's too bad a similar level of thought didn't go into having the screenplay do more with the material than simply place it on-screen. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: A mild lark disguised as a wild bender, "The Rum Diary" is also a touching tribute to Thompson himself, who committed suicide in 2005. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: You can't deny the fun of seeing Depp retro-construct a muted version of his Vegas mugging like De Niro riffing on Brando's Don Corleone. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The Rum Diary has no mighty gonzo wind. Even with a push from its Thompson-worshipping star, Johnny Depp, it leaves our freak flag limp. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Depp adroitly captures the "gonzo" spirit of the journalist/author/ingester of many substances. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Feels loose but lackadaisical -- a shaggy-dog story that's mostly shag and little dog. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: An imperfect portrait of what so often is overlooked when it comes to Thompson: his writing, and his obsessive dedication to it. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: Robinson, who also wrote the screenplay adaptation, doesn't present the cartoonish Thompson we've come to expect. It's a refreshing, grounded view of the writer. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "The Rum Diary'' has been retroactively Hunter S. Thompson-ized. And not for the better. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Despite some scattered moments of bad craziness involving the hero and his drinking buddies, the spine of the story is no strange and terrible saga but a conventional morality tale. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The undertaking was a labor of love. The results are more a labor of "like, in parts," but they certainly don't resemble anything else on screen at the moment. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Maybe Depp just doesn't want to upstage his hero. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The Rum Diary is a woozy mess that should never have made it to theaters. But then, it stars Johnny Depp, so it did. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Depp stares off into space, as if his brain were being slowly eaten by worms, and he speaks in a robo-monotone. You could call his acting ''cool,'' but a more apt description would be monochromatic and hollow. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: We have some fun with it, but you can tell the actors (not to mention the characters) are having a lot more fun than we are. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: The Rum Diary remains a relatively mild diversion, not at all unpleasant but neither compelling nor convulsive. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: In every move, Depp makes you believe this was a passion project for the actor, one he dedicates to Thompson. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The whole movie is one big, beautiful, funny, nostalgic blast and a fine, fitting tribute to a writer who relished skewering sacred cows. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: There was a reason "The Rum Diary" didn't find a publisher until a late-in-life Thompson resurgence, and it's clearer still in this adaptation - there's no real drama here. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: The Rum Diary is too muted to convey the intensity that propelled Thompson past most of the other magazine feature writers of his boozy era. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The juice that powers "The Rum Diary" has very little to do with the title drink, and almost everything to do with Johnny Depp looking happily intoxicated to play a real character again. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Paul may be played by one of the most charismatic actors alive, but for the most part, he is just another boozy hack. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: [It] was made three years ago, shelved in some musty editing room where unreleasable movies go, and looks it. The dust still shows. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Jazzy and colorful, full of men and women in swell clothes driving cool cars, The Rum Diary has a bit of a seedily exotic Graham Greene vibe, and Robinson moves things along at a nice, casual clip, even in the film's more overheated moments. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: There are times when the story behind the making of a film is more interesting than the finished product. This is one of those occasions. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: This is a rambling, shambling, period piece that never quite comes together. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: We have the feeling that Kemp/Thompson saw much of life through the bottom of a dirty glass and did not experience it with any precision. The film duplicates this sensation, not with much success. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: At best diverting, at worst drearily conventional, The Rum Diary is pre-gonzo Thompson. But the seeds are there, ready to yield a harvest of fear and loathing. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It's impossible not to admire the mild, sweet-tempered eccentricity of "The Rum Diary"... Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: What's missing is a sense of dramatic urgency. The film is a colorful travelogue unsure of where it's going. Read more

Joe Holleman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: If you'd like to see one version of the story about how the real Thompson became the famous, public Thompson, "The Rum Diary" is a solid and entertaining telling of that tale. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The supporting cast of journalistic riffraff is uniformly excellent. Read more

Leah Rozen, TheWrap: Depp, while always fun to watch, phoned this one in. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: It's funny as hell in places and touchingly warm. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Writer/director Robinson is anything but disciplined... and he's more inclined to just turn the camera on and let Depp do his thing. Which Depp does very well, but as talented and watchable as he is, even he can't completely save the picture. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: The film as a whole is best appreciated as a succession of richly rendered moods, plenty stimulating in the moment but rarely coalescing into something greater. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: The Rum Diary could use a shot of the mania that fueled Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. As deadpan as he is, Depp could use a crazed Benicio Del Toro to complement his cool. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "The Rum Diary" exudes a cheery, beery sense of warmth and affection. Read more