All Critics (37)
|
Top Critics (5)
|
Fresh (36)
|
Rotten (1)
|
DVD (17)
This independently produced low-budget film was a shining example for the New Wave directors -- Truffaut, Godard, et al -- who found it proof positive that commercial films could accommodate the quirkiest and most personal of visions.
The trail leads to a series of amorous dames, murder-minded plug-uglies and dangerous adventures that offer excitement but have little clarity to let the viewer know what's going on.
It's not the greatest thriller ever, but Kiss Me Deadly is classic film noir.
It's not a horror movie by any means, but like a good horror movie it has images and tiny loose ends that make sense on a subconscious level.
In the years since its release, Kiss Me Deadly has been copied so many times that many of its boldest elements are familiar, but they've done little to dull its overall impact.
The plot of the book is jettisoned for something altogether more terrifying and mysterious: Possession of a box that glows from within every time it is opened, however briefly. If that sounds like Pulp Fiction, well, it is, only 40 years earlier.
Kiss Me Deadly was so far out there that it is usually viewed as an end point to the classic film noir cycle.
... delivers a pulp punch while it savagely satirizes the entire hardboiled mythos with its bare-knuckle brutality, flights of purple prose dialogue and he-man chauvinism ...
one of the most memorable of American film noir, a remarkable fusion of hard-boiled mystery and atomic horror
...a cubist noir of the atomic age.
As brutal and cynical as the movie is, Aldrich knows how to seduce the audience; it still resembles a crackerjack crime movie.
I theme and style, Aldrich's apocalyptic film noir is an eccentric work, in many ways ahead of its times.
In the dingy, black-and-white halls of the film noir pantheon, they've a special place set aside for Kiss Me Deadly.
The brutality of the film's characters and its scenario are shocking enough today, but in 1955, they were gobsmacking.
Dazzling film noir masterpiece.
Kiss Me Deadly delivers the 'white-hot thrills' and 'blood-red kisses' promised by its publicity, as well as reminding us whence Tarantino stole his best riffs.
More Critic Reviews
Top Critic
