Viewer agony begins right near the start, as O describes her boffing sessions with the battle-scarred Chon: “I had orgasms; he had ‘wargasms.'” Yow. Haven’t Writers Guild of America memberships been revoked for less?

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Oct 4, 2023

While the juicy performances and exciting meat of Savages are vicious fun, it’s a film whose feeble conceit undoes the pleasures of its base appeal.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 4, 2022

Messy, violent, and often garish, but it's capably directed by Stone.

Full Review | Mar 19, 2021

The film lends its characters some last-second self-awareness that it could have used itself, instead taking a viewpoint exemplified in O's narration, casually approaching a very frenetic life.

Full Review | Mar 10, 2021

Savages all too often feels overly stylized, emotionally manipulative, and detached in the worst of ways.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 21, 2020

"Savages" winds up a charade, almost a spoof of the kind of movie it claims to be. It wants to push buttons, it wants to incite debate, it wants to have something to say and be more important that it is. But there's nothing behind it.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jul 11, 2020

It's gory, it's horribly flawed and it features some pretty bad acting, yet Savages is fun and exciting if you don't take any of it seriously.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.2/5 | Nov 11, 2019

Nothing in an Oliver Stone movie is ever subtle, and this one is no exception. But Kitsch, rebounding from two flops that were hardly his fault (John Carter, Battleship), proves his mettle with a tight-wound, fine-tuned performance.

Full Review | Jul 31, 2019

A film that is fascinating to watch for the most part, and never dull, but without anyone for whom the audience can have a real rooting interest.

Full Review | Apr 11, 2019

Savages is a fun flick that will keep you mildly entertained, but the script is flabby, the feature itself about 20 minutes too long and there's little dramatic tension to speak of.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 5, 2019

The film isn't as subversive or as shocking as it tries so hard to be and as a result, it's a much more underwhelming experience than it should have been.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 28, 2017

Savages may come off choppy in the very beginning, but it does springboards to a really fantastical second half.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 8, 2017

It's lurid, sexy, funny, chaotic, cluttered, and if the grisly violence turns you off then Blake Lively _ playing a very dumb blonde _ and her two beaus... will also chip in laugh-out-loud moments, all the while with the director winking off-scene.

Full Review | May 10, 2016

There's no heft to the material - only mindless violence - and Blake Lively is absolutely dreadful.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 17, 2016

Visually dazzling, if a bit bluntly simplistic and over-written. In other words, it's an Oliver Stone movie.

Full Review | May 3, 2015

A richly entertaining adaptation of Winslow's novel.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Aug 11, 2014

A well-told tale of power, corruption and uncivilized people who use violence and murder to achieve success.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.0/5 | Jun 30, 2013

An unabashedly lurid sun-and-surf ménage-à-trois cum drug-running caper, with touches of Jacobean tragedy for good measure.

Full Review | Jun 20, 2013

The film would have been so much more interesting if the two men had been identical twins played by the same actor-like Jeremy Irons in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers.

Full Review | Jun 17, 2013

Stone lights up a big fat one guaranteed to get you high anew on a filmmaker widely thought to have long lost his potency. And true to weed's notorious side effects, his stash is strong enough to obliterate the memory of drags like 'Alexander.'

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 26, 2013