53
Metascore
19 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliWith its refined wit and glorious vision, The Hudsucker Proxy is certainly deserving of a wide audience.
- 80EmpireKim NewmanEmpireKim NewmanWhile not to everyone's tastes, this is without doubt one of the most exhilarating films of 1994.
- 67Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAustin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenHudsucker Proxy works more like a fairy tale in which all implausibilities are acceptable and none of it has to play by real-world rules. But it's a fairy tale without any lessons, a satire without any targets.
- 63Christian Science MonitorDavid SterrittChristian Science MonitorDavid SterrittThe comedy has moments of great humor and terrific visual appeal. It's a solid achievement for Joel Coen, who directed; Ethan Coen, who produced; Sam Raimi, who wrote the screenplay with the brothers. [25 Mar 1994, p.A]
- 50The New York TimesThe New York TimesStylish and witty though it is, The Hudsucker Proxy has its problems, even for Coen fans. But throughout, there are wonderfully rich touches.
- 50Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe movie is that it's all surface and no substance. Not even the slightest attempt is made to suggest that the film takes its own story seriously. Everything is style. The performances seem deliberately angled as satire.
- 50Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumAt its best it's a free-form fantasy with glitzy, well-executed effects and assorted metaphysical conceits but little feeling for any of the characters apart from derision (with a few touches of racism here and there).
- 40VarietyTodd McCarthyVarietyTodd McCarthyThe Hudsucker Proxy is no doubt one of the most inspired and technically stunning pastiches of old Hollywood pictures ever to come out of the New Hollywood. But a pastiche it remains, as nearly everything in the Coen brothers' latest and biggest film seems like a wizardly but artificial synthesis, leaving a hole in the middle where some emotion and humanity should be.
- Another ultra-stylized movie-about-movies by the Cannes-winning Coen Brothers, Hudsucker is clever but cold, a heartless mechanical gizmo. The actors rattle around tinnily like shiny marbles inside its cavernous sets and hollow script.
- 30TimeRichard SchickelTimeRichard SchickelThe Coens have deliberately cut themselves off from their best subject. Try as they will to create a vision of corporate (and urban) hellishness through sheer stylishness, theirs is a truly abstract expressionism, at once heavy, lifeless and dry.