How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:71
Fresh:5
Rotten:66
Average Rating:2.7/10
Consensus: Lacking scares or psychological insight, Captivity is a distasteful entry in the 'torture porn' subgenre.
Theatrical Release:22-06-2007
Synopsis: Top cover girl and fashion model, Jennifer Tree (ELISHA CUTHBERT) has it all - beauty, fame, money and power. Her face appears on covers of hundreds of magazines. At the top of her game, Jennifer... [More]
Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Laz Alonso, Daniel Gillies
Director: Roland Joffé
Joffe and his screenwriter Larry Cohen deserve a little credit for pointing up the psychological horrors where they can, but Captivity is still a grubby, exploitative film with an extremely guessable twist and universally dull performances.
Top CriticA film of two halves, while the first is original, bleak and psychologically disturbing, the second couldn't be more conventional if it tried. By the end, we're the ones feeling like we've been drugged and duped - into watching this nonsense.
Top CriticIt flunks because it’s one of the daftest, dullest films I’ve seen in an absolute age.
Captivity is an abomination, and perhaps a new low in the torture-porn genre: a film I liked even less than Hostel.
Top CriticTorture junkies should remember it’s only four months to Saw IV -- so you can afford to avoid Captivity.
Top CriticThe film itself is a very sorry and unthrilling piece of nastiness, peddling some pretty crass nonsense about what it imagines to be female psychology.
Top CriticVeteran writer Larry Cohen has shown a knack for claustrophobic thrillers (Phone Booth), but this tawdry effort is almost entirely lacking in stealth and suspense.
Does exactly what it says on the tin, grabbing viewers unawares and keeping them in its thrall for an hour and a half of non-stop, heart-pounding exploitation kicks.
Polished and atmospheric, but utterly vacuous.
With only hunky Daniel Gillies on hand to offer help and essential hair products, the question is can her career survive such a lame script? In a word, no.
Chillingly enjoyable.
Larry Cohen, an experienced horror hand, wrote this, and Joffé does his best to keep the tension boiling up to a ridiculous climax. Even so, everybody involved should be ashamed of this nasty farrago.
The film’s clunky point-of-view shift and obviously re-shot climax are likely to have you choking in disbelief.
Top CriticRoland Joffé's feeble attempt to swing with the latest horror-flick fashion for gratuitous sensation is embarrassing
Top CriticLike Black Snake Moan, this is a film where poster campaign proves more provocative than content.
A badly written, poorly directed and appallingly acted mess.
Even in the fetid swamp of the torture porn genre, it stands out as a particularly awful movie.
Captivity is the kind of film that gives torture porn a bad name. It's disturbing in the most unpleasant ways possible outside of Abu Ghraib or battlefield snuff films.
Captivity has the compulsory quality of a straight-to-DVD movie -- and considering the fast-fading torture-porn movement, that's no doubt the destiny of similar offerings to follow.
It's a Saw rip-off with less smarts. (Take a moment, please, to allow that sentence to sink in.)
January 22, 2008:
I Know Who Killed Me, Norbit, Daddy Day Camp Lead Razzie Noms
No awards season -- even a strike-tainted one -- would be complete without the Razzies, right? Of course not. And that's why we've thoughtfully assembled all of this year's... More...
December 19, 2007:
MPAA Rejects Taxi to the Dark Side Poster
The poster submitted by ThinkFilm for Taxi to the Dark Side -- the Alex Gibney documentary opening January 11 -- has been rejected by the MPAA. More...
August 09, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: Chan and Tucker Back in Action
Another wide assortment of summer offerings will hit the multiplexes across North America this weekend. The action-comedy sequel Rush Hour 3 leads the way as the main course and... More...
July 20, 2007:
Larry Cohen Plans Remakes of It's Alive, Black Caesar, and The Stuff
Long before he wrote movies like "Phone Booth," "Cellular," and (ugh) "Captivity," filmmaker Larry Cohen was making horror movies about killer babies. And (guess what?) he just... More...
Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.
Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.
IGN.com |
GameSpy |
Comrade |
Arena |
FilePlanet |
GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox |
Planets |
Vaults |
VE3D |
CheatsCodesGuides |
GameStats |
GamerMetrics
AskMen.com |
Rotten Tomatoes |
Direct2Drive |
Green Pixels
IGN RSS Feeds
4 Comments
