45
Metascore
29 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 63Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversThough the movie ups the TV ante on nudity, language and violence, Lynch's control falters. But if inspiration is lacking, talent is not.
- 50Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanAt once hypnotic and baffling, filled with surreal motifs and symbols, Fire Walk With Me could be the most rarefied teen horror film ever made: It's like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
- 50Chicago TribuneDave KehrChicago TribuneDave KehrThe details of this Twin Peaks are slight and repetitious, and their meanings are numbingly obvious. Behind small town America's facade of sweetness and light, there exist darkness and evil-news that is a day late and about $7.50 short. [28 Aug 1992]
- 42Christian Science MonitorDavid SterrittChristian Science MonitorDavid SterrittJudged by the standards of ordinary filmmaking, it's as strange, suggestive, and surreal as other Lynch pictures have been. Judged by the standards of Lynch's own career, however, it's amazingly stale and second-hand… [and] contains not a single moment of genuinely felt emotion. [1 Sept 1992]
- 40VarietyTodd McCarthyVarietyTodd McCarthyEngagingly intriguing throughout most of its slightly overlong running time, and perhaps the strangely mesmerizing mood Lynch has orchestrated for the entire "Twin Peaks" undertaking should not be underestimated at this juncture. But the feeling persists that, to a considerable degree, Lynch is marking time with this project, creating new riffs and variations on themes he had already largely worked out.
- 38USA TodaySusan WloszczynaUSA TodaySusan WloszczynaExcept for a brief episode in which singer Chris Isaak and Kiefer Sutherland make like an FBI Rocky and Bullwinkle, this is a morbidly joyless affair. You'll feel as drained as one of Cooper's mugs of joe watching homecoming queen Laura drown in a whirlpool of sex and drugs. [31 Aug 1992]
- 25San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco ChronicleIt's all rather haphazard, and fans will wait in vain for Sheriff Harry S Truman, rich girl sexbomb Audrey Horne and the rest, or for more Cooper. Brief bits that avid viewers can understand will render the film incomprehensible to the new viewer. [29 Aug 1992]
- 20TimeTimeAfter an agonizing first half-hour designed to empty the theater, Lynch unleashes his patented perfervid style, puts the familiar dwarfs and feebs on display and elicits a nicely horrifying turn from Lee. [7 Sept 1992]
- 20Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAustin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenEverything is a puzzle and it's as though Lynch lost track of his reasons for making this prequel and got hung up on filming the sordid details that TV won't allow: shots of peeled-back corpse fingernails; close-ups of oscillating uvulas; visions of strange-looking, backward-talking, gyrating weirdos; and uncensored whiffs of sex, cocaine, and families undone.
- 0The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay ScottThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay ScottA two- hour-plus surrealistic bummer - it makes the audience feel as if it is coming down from a virulent drug. (The pacing, the images, the music and the endemic menace recall clinical descriptions of cocaine-induced paranoia.)...A disgusting, misanthropic movie.