70
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterWhat makes "Ecstasy" essential viewing for any pop-music fan and any student of celebrity pathology is the interview itself. Spector, despite his immodest comparisons of himself to Bach, da Vinci and Galileo, is surprisingly entertaining company, not simply the mad recluse with crazy hair that was his shocking image during the trials.
- 83The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasCurrently serving out a sentence that will likely consume the remainder of his life, Spector turns the interview into a trial on his own terms--one that's gripping, revelatory, and a little self-incriminating.
- 80VarietyRonnie ScheibVarietyRonnie ScheibVeering wildly between paranoia (being judged by "12 people who voted for George Bush") and self-aggrandizement (modestly comparing himself to Da Vinci, Bach and Galileo), Spector makes a fascinating subject.
- 80The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenCreepily riveting.
- 80Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanTo have been in junior high school when rhapsodic fugues of yearning like "Spanish Harlem," "Uptown," or "Be My Baby" first poured from the radio is to have a sensibility, if not a fantasy life, in some way molded by this monster of self-absorption; to see The Agony and the Ecstasy is to be discomfitingly haunted by the specter of that long-ago innocence.
- 75New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoThe film casts Spector in a sympathetic light. You can't help feeling sorry for the tormented genius.
- 75NPRElla TaylorNPRElla TaylorMakes fascinating viewing despite its clumsy bombast.
- 60Time OutDavid FearTime OutDavid FearA little more in-depth insight into a person who both produced that song ("Be My Baby") and pulled a trigger might have been nice.
- 60New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNew York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierThis absorbing film isn't an apology or an explanation, but it nonetheless holds plenty of answers - including an amusing dissection of that infamously wiry hair-bear 'fro from the man who wore it.
- 40Boxoffice MagazineJohn P. McCarthyBoxoffice MagazineJohn P. McCarthyMost of its truth (and any irony) is undercut by director Vikram Jayanti's fawning approach.