POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011)
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 125
Fresh: 91 | Rotten: 34
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold plays smartly to Spurlock's strengths, and the result is a breezy, albeit not particularly enlightening documentary.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 32
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 10
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold plays smartly to Spurlock's strengths, and the result is a breezy, albeit not particularly enlightening documentary.
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 12,576
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Movie Info
Director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, 30 Days) examines the increased proliferation of branding in every aspect of our lives while attempting to persuade big-name brands to sponsor his irreverent exposé. Companies love to push their products, and it seems like everywhere we go, someone is trying to sell us something. But have you ever wondered what goes on behind closed doors at some of the biggest advertising agencies in the world? In this eye-opening documentary, viewers follow Spurlock as
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All Critics (125) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (92) | Rotten (34) | DVD (4)
A robust and amusing reminder of how Hollywood's tills are topped up by third-party brands and what they get - and we lose - in return.
Top CriticMorgan Spurlock has sold his soul to help save yours.
The problem is that the film, despite an attempt to examine the intellectual pollution of pervasive marketing, can't help coming off as one big smirk.
Few could pull off this fan dance as well as Spurlock, who manages to be both the laughing and crying clowns at the same time.
Forget about "greatest." But this could be the most self-referential movie ever: literally a 90-minute narrative about its own creation.
"Pom Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold" sounds like an ingenious ploy, using the sponsors' own rope to hang them. Alas, the film never gets its lasso knotted.
The real public service here is learning how these companies protect themselves in the contracts that Spurlock signs to get them to sponsor his movie -- chilling.
And like Spurlock's other works, among all the laughs and gimmicks, he occasionally scores a moment that floors you.
I don't know if director Morgan Spurlock's intention of having his latest work becoming a 'doc-buster' will come to pass, but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun watching him try.
It's a bit of a rambling yarn, but Morgan deserves credit for winning $1.5million worth of funding by humorously cramming an ad into every conceivable cranny, including a reference to Coke after an MRI scan.
It's an amusing, shallow film...
It ought to be sharper. But that is not Spurlock's way, as evinced by his disappointingly self-regarding Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
He gets celebrity interviewees to blah on the subject -- Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Quentin Tarantino -- and still fails to dispel the mood of utter pointlessness.
Before this, I hadn't grasped that the notion of "product placement" is in fact passé; now it's all about "co-promotion".
Really, it's quite odious.
Glossy, diverting and shout-it-from-the-rooftops obvious- exactly like an ad, then.
At times, it seems like Spurlock has pulled off a minor creative coup, convincing brands to back a documentary that fundamentally questions their commercial ethics.
For his next project, it would be nice to see Spurlock put substance before gimmick. But first, a word from his sponsors...
Hugely entertaining and frequently laugh-out-loud funny, this is a riveting documentary that's both fascinating and genuinely disturbing and will make you keenly aware of the advertising that surrounds you on a daily basis.
Morgan Spurlock brings an affable everyman charm to this mind-bendingly insightful critique of a world awash in commercial calculations at every corner.
A strong gimmick, but it doesn't quite hang together as a documentary as well as it might.
The bemused smile on his face may fool some people into believing he doesn't have a strong point of view, but he does: like the man from Michigan, Spurlock is a muckraker...
Funny, self-aware, self-reflexive and absurd, it laughs in the faces of sell-outs all the way to the bank.
Most entertaining doco of the year
Audience Reviews for POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Morgan Spurlock: The goal of this whole film is transparency. You're going to see the whole thing take place from beginning to end.
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- Ralph Nader: You can satirize and spoof yourself out of your objective. Out of this film may come a transformed, commercialized, corporatized Morgan Spurlock. And you'll never be able to shake that identity. That's your peril. That's your challenge.
- Morgan Spurlock: Well. Have you got have a pair of these? (holds up a pair of Merrell brand shoes)
- Ralph Nader: Oh, they're giving you products now? You're going to be completely clothed with their products now.
- Morgan Spurlock: Absolutely. And this is a fantastic shoe.
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Foreign Titles
- POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (DE)
- POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (UK)
