Seven Pounds: Critic Reviews

An unintentionally ludicrous drama of repentance as an extreme sport.

I would tell you to go out and see it for yourself, but you might take that as a recommendation rather than a plea for corroboration. Did I really see what I thought I saw?

A supremely annoying film.

While it doesn't break any new ground or provide any revelations, Seven Pounds is unabashedly emotional and cautiously hopeful. It's the feel-good movie for these feel-bad times.

It's one of the clearest portrayals of a character's doubt, and ultimate resolution, I've seen in a good long while.

Too often the movie's preposterous ideas of goodly sacrifice blur the line between altruism and self-importance.

Dispiritingly obvious and phony from top to bottom

You'll have plenty of time for your mind to wander; feel free to spend some of it imagining what this imposing pair could do with the right material.

It takes the soggy cake for multiple layers of sentimentality topped by indigestible grandiosity.

The film closes on a meeting between two characters that's now wayyyy high on my list of weirdest moments in cinema. It is, I think, supposed to be touching.

It's impossible to talk about the movie without revealing the least little thing about its secret. And the secret is so flimsy, absurd and obvious that, if we write about it at all, you could figure it out from almost the moment the movie starts.

Not all holiday cheer need come in broad comedic strokes to warm the multiplex throngs.

I am fascinated by films that observe a character who is behaving precisely, with no apparent motivation. A good actor brings such a role into focus, as Will Smith does in the enigmatically titled Seven Pounds.

Seven Pounds has a heart as big as all outdoors. Unfortunately it's made out of high-fructose bull

Will Smith has fame, fortune, and a beautiful family, but that's not enough -- he wants you to know what a beneficent guy he is too.

A case study in overkill.

Seven Pounds is a difficult story, multilayered, spare and full of detail, thoughtfully told.

Seven Pounds features the best performance by a jellyfish in a film this year. Really, the thing is mesmerizing.

It's only Smith's performance that makes the tears worth crying.

Intricately constructed so as to infuriate anyone predominantly guided by rationality and intellect.

The sad truth is that if you laid this movie out chronologically -- and maybe if you don't -- not a whole lot of it makes any sense.

An emotional movie at the most emotional time of the year, it works to keep its secrets. But more importantly, when the tears do come, it has earned them.

You will either be frustrated with its asymmetrical and manipulative storytelling or be captivated by scattered clues that ultimately lead to some kind of resolution.

Seven Pounds has one fantastic scene that I wish we could all see and discuss. Sadly, to get to that scene you have to sit through quite a bit of melodrama (with a side of cheese).

It's probably safe to argue that never before has the spirit of giving been pushed any higher. How high? According to my altimeter, to that oxygen-deprived point where lachrymose meets laughable.