Spun 2003

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: Seems to exist for no reason other than to suggest that crystal-meth freaks are really scattered innocents looking for their next consciousness-raising jolt. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The Core is not the only disaster flick opening today, and it's doubtful that the folks in that movie can save the urchins on crystal meth in Spun. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: A gleefully repulsive movie. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: [I]t's so concerned with camera trickery and letting the actors go nuts, that there's no fuel left in the tank for story or character development. Read more

Loren King, Chicago Tribune: [Akerlund] has effectively created a head-spinning, flesh-crawling milieu all his own, but Spun is ultimately short on substance and long on style. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: If Spun doesn't glamorize the world it surveys, its parade of reeling potty-mouthed clowns (especially Mr. Rourke's cowboy chemist) still exudes a kind of doomy charisma. Read more

Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles Times: In Spun, the nightmare never ends for the pretty young Hollywood things like Mena Suvari and Brittany Murphy who play methamphetamine dress-up with pasted-on pimples and brushed-on bruises. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Accomplished, but it's also numbing. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: A placebo of a film. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: This movie is less than zero. Read more

Paul Malcolm, L.A. Weekly: While his characters wallow and his wasted cast founders in the shoals of Will De Los Santos and Creighton Vero's script, Akerlund apes the tics of his primary influences: Oliver Stone, Darren Aronofsky and the photography of David LaChapelle. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Spun may have its ambitions, but its adolescent eagerness to offend is what lingers. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is like the low-rent, road show version of those serious drug movies where everybody is macho and deadly. Read more

Jeff Stark, Salon.com: This tale of Southern California speed freaks works too hard for its high. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Ultimately, plot complication and freneticism can't distract us from noticing that the movie has no insights, no point, no urgency and no importance. Read more

Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: This drug drama has enough drugs to stock a hospital but precious little in the way of drama. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: It never quite convinces you this is anything but a fashion shoot. Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: Read more

Jessica Winter, Village Voice: The traumatized critic must struggle to avoid capital letters in urging patrons to steer clear of the colorfully cast but unbearable Spun. Read more