53
Metascore
35 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttOne of the best film musicals in years -- exuberant, sexy and life affirming in equal measure.
- 91Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam ArnoldSeattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam ArnoldColumbus is a member of the '80s generation and he gives the play authenticity, the respect of a classic, an epic visual scope and a sensibility that's blissfully free of any generational self-pity. It seems to be the movie he was born to make, and he serves it well.
- 91Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe movie is literally a series of showstoppers, unified by the impulse to turn life, at its scruffiest, into theater - into a rhapsody of the everyday.
- 75Chicago TribuneChicago TribuneIt's a pretty good version of a pretty great stage phenomenon.
- 63PremierePeter DebrugePremierePeter DebrugeConsidering how much new additions Rosario Dawson (as Mimi) and Tracie Thoms (as Joanne) bring to the film, it's a shame Columbus didn't introduce more changes.
- 60VarietyDavid RooneyVarietyDavid RooneyDirector Chris Columbus has pasted the grungy "La Boheme" update onto film with slavish respect for the original material but a shortage of stylistic imagination and raw emotions.
- 50Village VoiceVillage VoiceInstead of bringing a universal love story to the living present, the film traps it in a frozen past like a prehistoric bug in amber, as removed from moviegoers' experience as a dusty diorama at the American Museum of Natural History.
- 50The A.V. ClubNathan RabinThe A.V. ClubNathan RabinYes, Rent is the movie about AIDS, heroin addiction, homosexuality, strippers, marijuana, cross-dressing, and bisexuality audiences can take their grandparents to go see safe in the knowledge that any lingering trace of danger or authenticity has been carefully removed by director/co-writer Chris Columbus.
- 50USA TodayMike ClarkUSA TodayMike ClarkWith heavy HIV subtext and a couple of actors who have scored in other films, this La Bohème spinoff about fatal illness, drug addiction and eviction ought to be less of a slog than it is.
- Onstage, Rent is a series of power surges, but in the movie the songs leave you flat.