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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Road, The

EMAILPRINTThe Weinstein Company

Road, The reviews
64
7.7 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 93 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Adventure  |  Drama  |  Sci-fi  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Joe Penhall
Nick Wechsler

Directed by: John Hillcoat

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 25, 2009
DVD: May 25, 2010

Running Time: 119 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for some violence, disturbing images and language

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Guy Pearce

Based on Cormac McCarthy's beloved, best-selling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Academy Award nominee Viggo Mortensen leads an all-star cast in the big screen adaptation of The Road, the epic post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son across a barren landscape that was blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and most life on earth. (The Weinstein Company)

What The Critics Said

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...

88

USA Today Claudia Puig

While the film is not as resonant as the novel, it is an honorable adaptation, capturing the essence of the bond between father and son.

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88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Road evokes the images and the characters of Cormac McCarthy's novel. It is powerful, but for me lacks the same core of emotional feeling.

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88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

In this haunting portrait of America as no country for old men or young, Hillcoat -- through the artistry of Mortensen and Smit-McPhee -- carries the fire of our shared humanity and lets it burn bright and true.

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83

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The Road walks a tremendously daring and delicate line between inspiration and horror, and it does so not only in the events it depicts but in its very air and atmosphere. It was unforgettable on the page, and it impresses equally, or at least it does so remarkably often, on screen.

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80

Film Threat Elias Savada

It is compellingly enervating and a marvel in the filmmaking process.

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80

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Between the two performances there's not a false note. Between the father and son there's an unbreakable bond. Though civilization has ended, love and parental duty shape the course of this fable, which is otherwise as heartwarming as a Beckett play shorn of humor.

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80

Empire Dan Jolin

One of the most chillingly effective visions of the world’s end ever put on screen -- and a heart-rending study of parenthood, to boot.

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80

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Intense and, yes, depressing - and earns every minute that it rattles inside your head.

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80

Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf

And then, Robert Duvall appears—or, should I say, insinuates himself out of the muck. Cagily, his character wends his way into the story, played by the one American actor who might best understand the limits of bluster. “It’s foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these,” he mutters in the Duvall twang, the weather and indignity beaten into him, and The Road suddenly feels major.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Essentially a love story, as stripped of sentimentality as the landscape is shorn of green, yet an extraordinary love story nonetheless – powerful and poignant and, even in the midst of hope's imminent extinction, hopeful too.

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75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The Road isn't a masterpiece...But I cannot think of another film this year that has stayed with me, its images of dread and fear - and yes, perhaps hope - kicking around like such a terrible dream.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

The latest in a year filled with Armageddon movies such as "Terminator Salvation" and "2012," and it won't be the last, but it's the most chilling so far.

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75

Premiere Mark Salisbury

This might just be a tad too grueling and bleak for everyone’s liking, but it’s a Road that’s definitely well worth traveling.

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75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The movie The Road is nowhere close to its literary sire, but it's probably the best one could hope for from a movie version.

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75

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The filmmakers capture enough of the book's essence -- and the power of its knockout, transcendent ending -- to more than justify the movie's existence.

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70

The Hollywood Reporter Deborah Young

Director John Hillcoat has performed an admirable job of bringing Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to the screen as an intact and haunting tale, even at the cost of sacrificing color, big scenes and standard Hollywood imagery of post-apocalyptic America.

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70

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Engrossing and at times impressive, a pretty good movie that is disappointing to the extent that it could have been great. Is this the way the world ends? With polite applause?

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70

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

John Hillcoat's The Road is an honorable adaptation of a piece of pulp fiction disguised as high art; it a has more directness and more integrity than its source material, the 2006 novel by Cormac McCarthy.

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70

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Portrayed ad infinitum in sci-fi and fantasy, the postapocalypse may now seem about as scary as Post Raisin Bran, but Hillcoat gives it an unnerving solidity by focusing on the drab details of survival and linking them to the more hellish aspects of modern American life.

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67

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The Road deviates from McCarthy's original text via a series of flashbacks to the man's pre-apocalyptic life with the woman (Theron) who both leaves her family behind and is in turn left behind by them.

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67

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

There's enough foreboding in America right now to make sitting through a movie such as The Road seem like one more heavy burden that, frankly, no one needs.

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67

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Aas grim as The Road gets, Hillcoat goes a little soft at the wrong time. Someone like Michael Haneke would have no trouble embracing this material’s uncompromising dreariness.

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63

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Everything about the film is a welcome rebuke to the happy-face apocalypse of “2012,’’ a movie that turns mass extinction into the Greatest Show on Earth. In The Road, what has been lost is recognized as infinitely precious; what’s left is bitter and our due.

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63

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

The Road has the signposts of an important film, but it lacks the diversions of an inviting trip.

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63

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The best thing about the film is Viggo Mortensen’s performance. A stealth talent of many shadings, Mortensen has a way of fitting easily into nearly any period, any milieu.

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63

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The Road possesses undeniable sweep and a grim kind of grandeur, but it ultimately plays like a zombie movie with literary pretensions.

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50

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

The Road is a road you'll wish hadn't been taken. Not because anything's been badly done, but because there's a serious imbalance in the complicated equation between what the film forces us to endure and what we end up receiving in return.

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50

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Evocative as it is, The Road comes up short, not because it’s bleak but because it’s monotonous.

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50

New York Post Kyle Smith

Doesn't offer plot or an inquiry into the evil in men's hearts. It simply wallows in the filth and inhumanity that surround a father and his pre-adolescent son as they march across the shattered remains of this country.

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50

Slate Dana Stevens

For everything the movie gets right--most notably the impressively pared-down script by Joe Penhall and the two truthful and fearless performances from Mortensen and McPhee--there's a corresponding painful blunder, like the overwrought score from Nick Cave.

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42

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The novelist Cormac McCarthy was served well by the Coen Brothers' adaptation of his novel "No Country for Old Men" but comes a cropper in The Road, a lugubrious trek through postapocalyptic debris.

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40

Variety Todd McCarthy

Except for the physical aspects of this bleak odyssey by a father and son through a post-apocalyptic landscape, this long-delayed production falls dispiritingly short on every front.

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30

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Pale by comparison to an action thriller like "Children of Men" or gross out eco-catastrophe like "Land of the Dead," squandering its ready-made zombie scenario.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 93 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mikey M gave it a9:
This is not for the Avatar crowd. It's bleak but intense and not for everyone. Loved it.

James S. gave it an8:
Yes it did lack a little plot development, as in nothing much happens but I could feel the father and sons struggle throughout and the end was genuinely sad.

charles s. gave it a9:
Left me thinking about it for weeks. That is the mark of an impressive movie!

Keaton J. gave it a9:
The world has been destroyed by natural causes, and the few survivors that are left are mostly insane caravans of cannibals. Sound fun? Maybe for a video game, but the way The Road depicts it sure doesn't look like fun. This movie is based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, which I have never read, but if the book is as good as the movie, I'm down for a good reading period. The story follows two main characters as they try to survive in the treacherous wasteland, neither of which is ever named. They are just called "Papa" and "Son". The mother/wife is only shown in series of flashbacks from before the natural disasters and at the very beginning. "Papa" is played by Viggo Mortensen, and it is an incredible performance. Mortensen does an amazing job creating a father that will do anything to keep his son safe. He has to be tough on his son to teach him the harsh realities of this dangerous world. At the same time as this he deals with the loss of his wife. I couldn't imagine a better performance. The kid is acted by Kodi Smit-McPhee, who also does an outstanding job. A very interesting side character also comes in part way through the movie who is acted by Robert Duvall. The story is all together dark and dreary. This movie does not try and make the end of the world look all cool by using a sepia lens filter or slow motion killing. It shows a depressing, scary, and perilous world. A terrifyingly real world. There are really no laughing moments in this movie. The faint of heart should stray away from this road, because they will find nothing to smile about until the end, and that only if the viewer looks hard enough. I'm not going ruin the end for you guys, but I will tell you that it is beautiful. The Road is a tough film, but through all of the cannibalism and death, there is still a small glimmer of optimism seen through the life of a child and through the fact that even in times of severe suffering and distress, all hope is never lost.

Seba W.r gave it a10:
This movie is amazing. It's sad, thrilling and it was a great plot! This is a must see.

Andrew C gave it a9:
Was almost exactly as I envisioned it when I read the book. Very well done - terrific acting by all involved and a superb, resonating score In the book, I felt there were too many instances where the father and son were eating food, which would occur less often in a post apocalyptic wasteland. Then again, they may not be alive to make the story, but the movie emphasized starvation, so in that respect it was an improvement. A couple scenes of the murderous chaos following the depletion of food supplies, described briefly by Macarthy, would have been nice, and I agree with others who desired some lingering panoramic shots of devastation, but these quibbles are a trifle. Not much more can be asked of a screen adaptation from an awe inspiring novel - very moving. The crazy thing is that the possibility of Macarthy's world becoming a reality is not beyond comprehension.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
If your a fan of the book, you won't be disappointed. The Road is an amazing adaptation and overall a wonderful movie.

Read more user comments >

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