Avis Metacritic

One of the most complex and powerful literary scripts in recent times.

Doesn’t always convince, particularly in the last lap. But it’s an engrossing, unusual, imaginatively executed bit of psychological gamesmanship nonetheless.

Curiously, one of the film's stranger effects is that it's more convincing as a meditation on desire and Hollywood than as a biographical exploration.

Gods and Monsters is not a deep or powerful film, but it is a good-hearted one.

A rich, multi- layered portrait of a director from Hollywood's Golden Age whose own life was as interesting as any of his movies.

Beyond the fantastic contrivances of Gods and Monsters, these performances are startlingly human.

While McKellen's sharp performance provides the main attraction, the film wouldn't work without both Fraser, who brings something extra to a character who could easily have been a mere lunk, and director Bill Condon's careful integration of larger themes.

As a portrait of a deliciously eccentric individual, Gods and Monsters features a vivid performance from Ian McKellen that makes you think not of James Whale but of Ian McKellen.

Lynn Redgrave is nearly incomprehensible as the housekeeper with some sort of housekeeperly accent. [Dec. 14, 1998]

Psychologically thin, artistically flabby, and symbolically opaque.