50
But imagination and energy are often not enough. On balance, this is the dumbest of the entries in Hollywood's anti-consumerist new wave.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
63
Keeps filmgoers wondering what will happen next even as they are repulsed by what's happening in front of them.
100
San Francisco Chronicle by Bob Graham
Delivers a sucker punch to the audience and then pulls the rug out from under it. It is sensational. It is also grimly funny.
80
The New York Times by Elvis Mitchell
The sardonic, testosterone-fueled science fiction of Fight Club touches a raw nerve.
50
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
This exercise in mainstream masochism, macho posturing, and designer-grunge fascism is borderline ridiculous. But it also happens to be David Fincher's richest movie.
63
It's fun to talk about...but the price you pay is enduring its excesses and pummeled-home thematic points.
75
Miami Herald by Rene Rodriguez
As a piece of storytelling, Fight Club is a bit of a dud: It's a good 15 minutes too long, and the tension doesn't build the way you wish it would.
50
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
But the second act is pandering and the third is trickery, and whatever Fincher thinks the message is, that's not what most audience members will get.
100
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
Fight Club -- cue the blurb machine -- is a knockout.
70
Washington Post by Stephen Hunter
A provocative experience that lights you up even as it brutalizes you. And I don't even like Brad Pitt very much.