81
Metascore
9 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Time OutJoshua RothkopfTime OutJoshua RothkopfIt may be time to stop calling Nicolas Roeg's sexed-up sci-fi film that vaguely demeaning term - a cult classic - and start addressing it as what it is: the most intellectually provocative genre film of the 1970s.
- 100The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawThe story unfolds in a daring sequence of narrative leaps.
- 100Total FilmJames MottramTotal FilmJames MottramIt’s ambitious, artful and unique. As for Bowie… what a star, man.
- 80Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonTime Out LondonTom HuddlestonBowie’s performance is riveting, drawing on his history of mime to play a man who is almost, but not quite, one of us.
- 80CineVueDaniel GreenCineVueDaniel GreenThe choice of casting Bowie as Newton is inspired - the androgynous star perfectly suiting the role of the space visitor. Bowie - in his first silver-screen appearance - excels, creating a perfectly suited sense of tragedy and melancholic ambiguity.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertBowie, slender, elegant, remote, evokes this alien so successfully that one could say, without irony, this was a role he was born to play.
- 75Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaPhiladelphia InquirerSteven ReaIt's not just the grainy stock and bad sound - technically, we've come a long way. It's the cheesy sex, the awkward edits, the hammy symbolism, the mix of art-house aesthetics and exploitation cliché. Strange creature, this is.
- 75Portland OregonianMarc MohanPortland OregonianMarc MohanThere's an inherent contradiction at the film's core: this sexually explicit motion picture, seemingly made by and for altered consciousnesses, is all about how an innocent newcomer falls prey to gin, sex, and television.
- 50Village VoiceNick PinkertonVillage VoiceNick PinkertonUndeniably long, Panavision-wide, but of questionable depth.