53
Metascore
23 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 60Screen RantMae AbdulbakiScreen RantMae AbdulbakiIt’s a fascinating story to balance, and though it doesn’t always work, Finley really runs with the concept and its various themes. It’s safe to say there’s never a dull moment in the film, and it isn’t predictable in terms of what comes next.
- 60SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSlashfilmChris EvangelistaBlackk makes for a great protagonist, and Haddish gets some big laughs here and there, but the rest of the cast feels slightly lost, primarily because the story introduces them only to then have them fade into the background.
- 50The PlaylistJason BaileyThe PlaylistJason BaileyThere’s a curious shortage of honest-to-goodness laughs in Finley’s script; the humor is strained, and it doesn’t really land as science-fiction either. ... “Landscape with Invisible Hand” is, at best, an ambitious failure.
- 50IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichFinley often seems to be at the mercy of his material’s strangeness. He stages most scenes with a vacuum-sealed flatness, as if unsure how else to focus our attention on what’s sucking the life out of the film’s world, and his cast — who can only stretch their characters’ shared frustration so far — are left with little to do but lean into the anti-drama of intergalactic domination.
- 42The Film StageJordan RaupThe Film StageJordan RaupInitially intrigues with its lo-fi sci-fi ambition but has too much on its mind without saying anything interesting at all.
- 40The GuardianBenjamin LeeThe GuardianBenjamin LeeA bafflingly botched misfire ... Quite what the film is and who it’s for remains a head-scratcher, a stilted jumble of somethings boiling down to nothing.
- 40VarietyTomris LafflyVarietyTomris LafflyFinley loses his exacting handle on the material, allowing the story’s more commonplace ideas to dictate its direction in ways both unsurprising and a little rough around the edges.
- 40TheWrapLena WilsonTheWrapLena WilsonWhere Anderson went to great lengths to address some salient topics in his novel — like colonialism, the American healthcare system, and the obsolescence of the working class — Finley’s “Landscape” lacks the worldbuilding necessary to make any such strong connections. This could be a scathing indictment of our country’s growing class divide. Instead, it’s a nice-looking, entertaining movie that conveniently pulls its punches.
- 30The Daily BeastColeman SpildeThe Daily BeastColeman SpildeLess than halfway into its already brief runtime, Landscape starts to fall apart at the seams. The film bungles its promise with a confused mixture of half-baked ideas that miss their mark entirely, all while it struggles to probe the concept of humor with a cold, alien touch.