Critic Reviews
43
Metascore
Mixed or Average
positive
5(14%)
mixed
21(58%)
negative
10(28%)
Showing 36 Critic Reviews
100
When you watch Wonderland, going back twenty years plus, you think you're in for some paleontological expedition. Yet, thanks to James Cox's considered and adept direction, a cast and script that never cheats the experience or realism of Hollywood's enigmatic underbelly -- the drama of the 1981 Wonderland murders is de-petrified.
80
A film whose effects are as hard to wash away as blood.
80
Another of the film's positive aspects is its narrative style, reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon.
75
Once you leave Wonderland, you may feel like you need a shower, but, while you're in the moment, it's a compelling journey into the depths of hell on earth.
75
Fast and frenetic and so unvarnished that it can make you feel unclean watching it. The film rubs your face in glamour and filth. But in the midst of the blood and hysteria, Kilmer plays Holmes with the dirty-angelic looks and wheedling charm of a seedy golden boy on the brink of doom.
60
F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong: there are second acts in American lives. But all too many of them are sad, sordid or both, as this fact-based story of sex, drugs and murder featuring adult-movie superstar John Holmes aptly demonstrates.
58
The film is so truncated, so obsessed with style and composed of so many self-contained episodes that it fails to say anything new.
50
Character gets sacrificed for just another true-crime drama.
50
Has absolutely nothing to say about its characters and their lamentable actions.
50
When we finally do see what happened, it's a genuine shock, a nightmare vision of a hedonist who forged his own hell.
