“Flatliners” Scores A Rare 0% Critics Score
This week’s “Flatliners” remake has earned a rare honor – scoring a disastrous 0% rating on
Rotten Tomatoes from 23 reviews so far.
The film’s average rating of 3.5/10 is slightly better, as is its 31/100 on
MetaCritic, even so, it’s unanimously terrible reviews and a far cry from the 1990 Joel Schumacher-directed original which itself wasn’t held in high esteem with a 49% RT score. Several choice quotes about the remake are on offer such as:
“The original Flatliners should have had a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order attached to it.” – John Nugent, Empire Magazine
“A group of people who should know better find themselves eager for the cold embrace of death. But enough about the poor souls who bought tickets to Flatliners.” – Jim Slotek, Original Cin
“The do-over barely raises an eyebrow without getting winded, never truly understanding what it’s supposed to be doing with the wonderfully outrageous premise.” – Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com
“The reboot no one asked for of a movie no one much remembers has landed… and it’s dead on arrival, with nothing new to say and no new way to say it.” – MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher
Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton and Kiersey Clemons star in the Niels Arden Oplev-directed new film which wasn’t screened for critics. It wasn’t quite clear until the film’s release if this was a sequel or remake, but upon viewing it has been confirmed to be a remake.
Kiefer Sutherland, the lead from the original, has a cameo here and originally shot a single scene which hinted at events in the original – a scene that was subsequently cut before release because it confused those unaware of the original, so in its excision, it turns this into a remake. Said scene will be included in the deleted scenes on the disc.
Similarly Oplev told
Cinema Blend recently that one key change made to the remake was that audiences these days couldn’t understand the original film’s conceit that these people were being haunted by someone who was still alive – so an explanation had to be put in to compare the experience more to a hallucination.
“Flatliners” is now out in cinemas.
