Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

Variety by

Paul Viragh's script is too bitty to hold it all together, and filigrees of technique fail to disguise the weaknesses in helmer Mat Whitecross' first solo flight.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

Its flashes of style are sometimes lively but more often seem, like the slavish period décor, to be desperate attempts to overcome the built-in inertia of the genre.

New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman

Musical biopics usually replicate a star's rise and fall in depressingly predictable fashion. Hurray, then, for Mat Whitecross and his vibrantly eclectic take on what should feel like the same old story.

The Hollywood Reporter by Ray Bennett

It's an energetic and vivacious film that will appeal to fans of punk rock worldwide and should find its place in the pantheon of great music-film biographies.

Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele

A new biopic of eccentric British rock legend Ian Dury, Andy Serkis uncoils a performance of spit, grit and wit so ferocious it only serves to starkly clarify how unremarkable and formulaic the rest of the movie is.