Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
50
(35 sources)
50
(35 sources)
-
80
Washington Post
Turns potentially forgettable formula into something strangely diverting. Read Full Review » -
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Schroeder's misstep is trying hard to please his star, whether it be her character's empathetic past or one very fake-looking action climax. His greatest service is keeping her toe-to-toe with her talented co-stars -- and both are the better for it. Read Full Review » -
75
Chicago Tribune
The outline of Murder by Numbers may be familiar, but the filmmakers and Bullock do an expert job of filling in the colors. Read Full Review » -
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Bullock does a good job here of working against her natural likability, creating a character you'd like to like, and could like, if she weren't so sad, strange and turned in upon herself. Read Full Review » -
75
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75
Baltimore Sun
The story may be about cold-blooded murder, but Bullock's pulsating performance is about the getting of wisdom. Read Full Review » -
70
Los Angeles Times
Though Schroeder makes you squirm more than you want to at the inevitable scenes of the trussed-up female murder victim, he also has the proclivity and the skill to make at least the B-picture half of Murder by Numbers of more than passing interest. Read Full Review » -
70
The New Yorker
Bullock shades what she normally does into something more interesting -- the angriest and sexiest work she's done. [6 May 2002, p. 138] Read Full Review » -
70
LA Weekly
Even as the psychological interdependencies of the two boys take the foreground, the movie gets more and more crowded with fun-house surprises and cliffhanging set pieces. Read Full Review » -
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
This is the kind of film where the audience has to sort through the sequences, like visiting the green grocer's: liked that bit, can do without those. Read Full Review » -
63
Philadelphia Inquirer
When Bullock is on screen, Murder by Numbers is as far away as a sleepwalker's gaze. But when Schroeder focuses on the teenagers, the film is wide awake, eye-to-eye with adolescent angst and anomie. Read Full Review » -
63
ReelViews
Towards the end, Murder By Numbers reverts to form with cheesy clichés, plot twists, and a fair amount of unnecessary action, but that's easily the film's low point. Read Full Review » -
63
Boston Globe
For much of its length, the film is plausible, if predictable and ponderous. Its strongest assets are its actors. Read Full Review » -
63
New York Post
In effect gives you two movies for the price of one. The better one doesn't star Sandra Bullock. Read Full Review » -
60
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60
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58
Entertainment Weekly
Even though Bullock engages in a climactic scene of blue-screen peril, she essentially cedes the match to the kids. In this mediocre murder case, their presence is the only thing that's really killer. Read Full Review » -
50
Chicago Reader
Neither the crime nor its detection is especially interesting, and screenwriter Tony Gayton doesn't appear to be aiming for psychological insights. Read Full Review » -
50
Village Voice
But owing no doubt to the requirements of Sandra Bullock, the movie's above-the-line star, executive producer, and worst enemy, this potboiling procedural never stands a chance of disproving its title. Read Full Review » -
50
San Francisco Chronicle
A near miss, a respectable but uninspired thriller that's intelligent and considered in its details, but ultimately weak in its impact. Read Full Review » -
50
Slate
Not even the actress' soulfulness can save the generic climax, in which she tussles with the badder bad guy on a collapsing terrace above a crashing surf. As a colleague muttered, "Murder by numbers is right." Read Full Review » -
50
Charlotte Observer
There is indeed a murder - two of them, in fact - and the movie proceeds strictly by the numbers laid down long ago in some by-the-book Hollywood writing class. Read Full Review » -
50
Film Threat
Doesn't necessarily make Murder by Numbers an awful film; it's certainly watchable, but it never escapes its paint-by-numbers design. Read Full Review » -
50
The New York Times
The real surprise, given the secondhand material, is that not everything proceeds by rote in Murder by Numbers. Read Full Review » -
50
New York Daily News
Ultimately, Murder by Numbers has been reduced to a tease, giving us a hint -- mostly through the fine performances of Gosling, who creates a charismatic sociopath, and Pitt, who's character seems genuinely troubled -- of the kind of relevant social drama it might have been. Read Full Review » -
50
Miami Herald
In Murder by Numbers, though, even Schroeder can't keep his own boredom from showing. Read Full Review » -
42
Portland Oregonian
Starts out dark, thrilling and inventive, then, regrettably, becomes sappy, mainstream and mundane. Read Full Review » -
40
Wall Street Journal
The shallow-seated problem with Murder by Numbers is that it's serious and doggedly intricate but not much fun. Read Full Review » -
40
New York Magazine
Director Barbet Schroeder is too elegant an artist for this material, which veers between routine cop-movie conventions and high-toned malarkey that seems a lot closer to Dungeons & Dragons than to "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." Read Full Review » -
40
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40
TV Guide
There's nothing blatantly wrong with it (except perhaps the red-assed baboon ex machina), but it's 100% shock-free and coasts to a formulaic conclusion. Read Full Review » -
40
The Onion (A.V. Club)
A moralizing thriller so listless that it plays out like a game of mouse and mouse. Read Full Review » -
30
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30
New Times (L.A.)
Most obvious crime is first-degree dullness, giving us a thriller without thrills and a mystery devoid of urgent questions. Read Full Review » -
20
Salon.com
This premise could, just maybe, make for a decent thriller, but everything about Murder by Numbers is so flavorless and rote, so devoid of real suspense and human interest, that you never suspect for a moment that the answers are likely to be engaging. Read Full Review »
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