61
Metascore
40 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySnappy, nasty, deftly acted and perhaps the fastest paced film ever directed by a 78-year-old, this adaptation of Yasmina Reza's award-winning play God of Carnage fully delivers the laughs and savagery of the stage piece.
- Relatively light-hearted for a Polanski film (no one dies), Carnage is fun verbal warfare cleanly filmed.
- 75Slant MagazineEd GonzalezSlant MagazineEd GonzalezOne doesn't have to look too closely at Carnage's final shot to marvel at the way Polanski refuses to haughtily indict his audience in the pettiness of his characters' behavior.
- 75New York PostLou LumenickNew York PostLou LumenickFast, furious and often funny. But no blood is truly shed (except literally in a playground fight during the opening credits).
- 63ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliCarnage suffers from a common problem that afflicts many stage-to-screen adaptations: too much artifice and contrivance.
- 60Time OutJoshua RothkopfTime OutJoshua RothkopfWatch the director's 1976 "The Tenant," and you'll know he can do more with less.
- 50VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangThe real battle in Roman Polanski's brisk, fitfully amusing adaptation of Yasmina Reza's popular play is a more formal clash between stage minimalism and screen naturalism, as this acid-drenched four-hander never shakes off a mannered, hermetic feel that consistently betrays its theatrical origins.
- 50The New YorkerAnthony LaneThe New YorkerAnthony LaneThe performances are lusty and concerted, but they remain just that - performances, of the sort that may make you feel you should stagger to your feet at the end and applaud. If so, resist.
- 50Village VoiceVillage VoiceIn the final stage of the film's programmatic chaos, Alan announces that he believes in the god of carnage and cops to the pleasure he gets from watching people deviate from social convention and tear one another apart. You'd have to agree with him in order to embrace this film - there's nothing else to see here.