WillardMovie Reviews

Gifts + Promos

The Vow Free Gift

Buy tickets & receive a FREE 3-Month Love Forecast from Astrology.com!

Fandango Bucks

Send your sweetheart the gift of movies this Valentine’s Day!

Journey Sweeps

Enter for a chance to win a trip for 2 to Nicaragua!

Interactive Oscar Ballot

Who's taking home the Oscar? Cast your vote & challenge your friends on Facebook!

Go
Avg. Critic Score: 61 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
15 Iffy for 15+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 80
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    This is a one-riff movie and instant cult classic. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Jonathan Curiel

    A silly, snarling romp -- a fun (if you're in the mood for it), sometimes scary look at the life of a socially awkward man whose best friend is a white rodent he names Socrates. Read full review

  • 75
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Want your skin to crawl? This one's for you. Read full review

  • 75
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    The new version is actually better. It's still a fairly ham-handed revenge-of-the-nerd horror fable, but you don't go to a movie like Willard for subtlety. You go to be skeeved out by rats, rats, and more rats, and I'm tempted to say that Willard does a fairly rat-tastic job of it. Read full review

  • 70
    Los Angeles Times | Kevin Thomas

    The new Willard, which has taken the original's humanity and the psychological validity, leavened with a dollop of dark humor, and replaced them with a technically impressive but essentially heartless spoof. Read full review

  • 63
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    There is real wit in Glover's performance. And wit, too, in R. Lee Ermey's performance as the boss, which draws heavily on Ermey's real-life experience as a drill sergeant. Read full review

  • 50
    USA Today | Mike Clark

    The movie isn't without style, but the material can't remotely sustain 100 minutes. Read full review

  • 30
    Variety | Scott Foundas

    Strictly for the birds. Read full review

  • 20
    Wall Street Journal | Joe Morgenstern

    Everything that was modest, soundly grounded and therefore horrifying about the 1971 rodentarama that starred Bruce Davison is now insistent, Grand-Guignol-intense and therefore shrug-offable when it isn't downright awful. Read full review

  • 20
    The New York Times | Stephen Holden

    The worst flaw of Willard is a clunky tone-deaf screenplay based on Gilbert Ralston's original and updated by the director. Barely a line flies by that doesn't land with a wooden thud. Read full review


Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Terrifying and violent horror movie. Rats -- EWW.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this is a horror movie with real horror, including some scary shocks, some very tense and suspenseful moments, and some very grisly images. Characters are in peril and some are killed.
  • Families can talk about why Willard felt he had no alternatives, and how stories like this are often inspired by the consequences of keeping feelings inside and a sense of powerlessness.
  • Why was Willard unable to accept Katherine's offer of friendship?
The good stuff
  • rolemodels true0 Positive role models: The cast lacks cultural diversity.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Extremely intense horror violence, characters killed.
  • sex false3 Sex: Character views a porn website.
  • language false3 Language: Some very strong language including "f--k" and "s--t."
  • consumerism false3 Consumerism: Some materialism.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false0 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Brief drinking.

Facebook Movie Fans