Average Rating: 6.9/10
Reviews Counted: 180
Fresh: 138 | Rotten: 42
Elevated by Fincher's directorial talent and Foster's performance, Panic Room is a well-crafted, above-average thriller.
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 10
Elevated by Fincher's directorial talent and Foster's performance, Panic Room is a well-crafted, above-average thriller.
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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 210,615
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A well-regarded spec script by A-list screenwriter David Koepp became this stylish thriller from director David Fincher. Jodie Foster stars as Meg Altman, a single mother of an diabetic preteen daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart). Meg's going through an unhappy divorce that forces her and Sarah to move into a new home. They choose a deluxe New York brownstone that coincidentally boasts an unusual feature: a "panic room," a vault-like hidden space capable of literally sealing itself off from the
Mar 29, 2002 Wide
Sep 17, 2002
$95.3M
Sony Pictures
All Critics (182) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (144) | Rotten (42) | DVD (44)
A thinking-man's women-in-jeopardy picture, Panic Room does about as much as humanly possible with its deliberately restricted one-setting premise.
Fincher mounts some clever, tense sequences in which the trio devises increasingly threatening strategies to force Meg and Sarah out of the panic room, only to be matched with improvised ingenuity from behind the vault door.
... one of the most ingenious and entertaining thrillers I've seen in quite a long time.
Foster nails the role, giving a tight, focused performance illuminated by shards of feeling.
It's difficult to work up a strong case of the heebie-jeebies when you keep getting thrown out of the movie by all the atrocious acting.
It's a treat for the eyes and ears.
Extreme suspense, graphic violence; not for kids.
Valuing logic over brutality, David Fincher's claustrophobic ride also touted the real-world practicality of keeping quiet over the cinematic kicks of a loud thriller. It's like "Wait Until Dark" with helplessness that's emotional, not just physical.
Apart from one plot twist too many, "Panic Room" is a seamless suspense-thriller with a top-notch cast.
There are so little things you can do with this story and a lot of it is pretty contrived.
David Fincher directs a nail-biter starring Jodie Foster about a mother and daughter who defend their house against a brutal home invasion.
[Allows] Fincher to shine as the skilled, stylish director that he is.
After his mind-bending, exhilarating Fight Club, director David Fincher takes on a more conventional Hollywood thriller.
Ultimately, this is just a big, dumb, commercial suspenser - but it's one of the best for ages, reminding us that it is still possible to make a high quality piece of popcorn entertainment.
Fincher is such a technically brilliant director that he can elevate a genre film--a suspenser about a damsel-in-distress--above its melodramatic trappings. The confined space (whole movie is set within a house) is no big challenge for him.
Never averse to glistening darkness, meaty metaphor or grandiloquent technical display, Fincher is also surprisingly at home with hokum.
Panic Room is a very scary film, well made and lovingly dark, and it illustrates how terrified we are of becoming the victims we see on TV.
The panic room itself is a provocative concept and it says something about modern society, but I'm not sure if it deserved its own movie.
The rich in Panic Room are under siege, and the overgrown fortress of their self-indulgence seems helpless to defend itself.
The film has some nice psychological development and stimulating moral conflicts, but it is basically a bite-your-nails suspense film and makes no bones about it.
Director David Fincher stuffs the film with showy camerawork, including a trip into a keyhole, down drainpipes and through air vents.
The DVD provides enough substantive insight into the contemporary Hollywood filmmaking process.
I enjoyed this movie and found incredibly suspenseful, its got a great cast and its just a thoroughly enjoyable suspenseful movie thats worth a watch!Its tense watching but you'll be satisfied by the end!
September 9, 2007
Super Reviewer
"Panic Room" is nothing more than a thriller -- an incredibly nerve-racking and tense thriller that is sure to entertain. This is another one of those movies that completely commits its setting in one place but yet the direction, editing, and narrative drives this thriller to be a pulse-pounding epic that is sure to be
September 26, 2010Super Reviewer
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