52
Metascore
31 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83IndieWireKate ErblandIndieWireKate ErblandMore sad than salacious, it’s the rare film about a criminal that offers human details without humanizing a man who so many agree was a monster.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyIt’s quite a story, which Berlinger moves along with unrelenting energy.
- 70Film ThreatMatthew PassantinoFilm ThreatMatthew PassantinoAt times, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is all about the performances because the movie itself struggles a bit with settling on a tone.
- 70TheWrapCarlos AguilarTheWrapCarlos Aguilar“Extremely Wicked” winds up a thought-provoking piece of cinema that avoids the easy temptation of shock value in favor of a more philosophical take on a diabolical murderer.
- 60The GuardianBenjamin LeeThe GuardianBenjamin LeeIt’s a star vehicle that starts and ends with its star, the film around him struggling to justify its existence. Efron is wicked, the film less so.
- 58The A.V. ClubA.A. DowdThe A.V. ClubA.A. DowdDramatically speaking, it’s a failed thought experiment—you get, watching it, why no one has really told this kind of story in this way. But it’s still hard not to admire the film’s perversely un-perverse strategy, its good-faith attempt to do something more than simply trot out the awful, salacious details.
- 58The Film StageJordan RaupThe Film StageJordan RaupAs an oddity of the serial killer genre, some of Berlinger’s choices ring more as engagingly strange than unsuccessful.
- 50New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaNew York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaIf the narrative film only exists to give us the unsettling sliminess of Efron as Bundy, it won’t be a total waste. But it’s not much of a movie, either.
- 40Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonZac Efron projects the right amount of edgy, empty handsomeness, but the movie’s conceit doesn’t pay enough dividends — especially when trying to reconcile Bundy’s distortions of reality with the actual terror he caused in the 1970s.
- 33The PlaylistRodrigo PerezThe PlaylistRodrigo PerezA superficial tale about the casualty at the center of the story, Extremely Wicked, rings hollow and false and is really just as interested in the sensational and salacious as any other reductive thriller.