The Muse (1999)
Average Rating: 5.9/10
Reviews Counted: 77
Fresh: 40 | Rotten: 37
Despite quirky and original writing, the subject matter feels too removed to produce laughs.
Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 24
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 13
Despite quirky and original writing, the subject matter feels too removed to produce laughs.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.6/5
User Ratings: 6,583
Movie Info
Actor/writer/director Albert Brooks turns his satiric gaze on the film industry in this comedy about a screenwriter who has hit a rough patch. Steven Philips (played by Brooks) has enjoyed a celebrated career in Hollywood, but one day he has a meeting with his agent, who informs him his career is suddenly going nowhere. Steven quickly finds himself at the end of his rope and is unable to put a decent sentence on paper. Desperate, he hears that there's a bona fide muse in Hollywood, Sarah (played
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Cast
-
Albert Brooks
Steven Phillips -
Sharon Stone
Sarah -
Andie MacDowell
Laura Phillips -
Jeff Bridges
Jack Warrick -
Mark Feuerstein
Josh Martin -
Steven Wright
Stan Spielberg -
Bradley Whitford
Hal -
Dakin Matthews
Dr. Jacobson -
Concetta Tomei
Nurse Rennert -
Cybill Shepherd
Herself -
Lorenzo Lamas
Himself -
Jennifer Tilly
Herself -
Rob Reiner
Himself -
Wolfgang Puck
himself -
James Cameron
Himself -
Martin Scorsese
Himself
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All Critics (101) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (37) | DVD (10)
The Muse is as consistently funny as it is smartly tooled.
Typically fresh and idiosyncratic in the writing but often flat directorially.
Perversely amusing!
Satire, Hollywood in-jokes won't appeal to kids.
Like the character he plays here, Albert Brooks needed someone or something to re-inspire him while working on this plodding comedy.
Albert Brooks' mildly amusing satire about the inner workings of Hollywood benefits from Sharon Stone's droll and sexy performance, but as a comedy it's too familiar and not funny enough.
Brooks' gentle satire of Hollywood.
In its story of a terrible filmmaker, it almost manages to explain the madness behind why Brooks still gets to crank out excrement like this.
Squeezes out plenty of laughs at the expense of the Hollywood film community.
A hit-and-miss affair, banking a bit too much on its one joke premise.
The Muse is an underdeveloped, lackluster effort, despite a sparkling comic turn by Sharon Stone.
A writer and comic who's the best when he's the nastiest, Brooks creates for himself a character that's way too accommodating and sweet.
I thought Brooks mailed this script in.
Though consistently fun in an Albert Brooks kind of way, this film drags its feet with the business of building to a climax.
The clear potential that The Muse possesses only makes the final product even more of a disappointment.
Appropriately enough, it seems that Brooks and Johnson needed a muse of their own to really make this film work.
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