Critic Reviews

If you want soapy, mindless melodrama to pass the time, press play. But if you want to watch Cruel Intentions, for God’s sake, just dust off the DVD.

“Cruel Intentions” a serviceable soap but nothing more.

Honestly, the Caroline/Lucien/Annie triangle itself is…fine? Cruel Intentions’ biggest problem is that it just really, really doesn’t work as an ensemble show. Instead of spending ample time developing Lucien and Annie’s relationship and getting viewers invested in them, the series gets bogged down by a million unnecessary storylines.

This Cruel Intentions wants to wield the same darker, taboo elements that the movie unapologetically displayed 25 years ago, but ultimately shies away from any real ruthlessness, and therefore fails at having any teeth at all.

Its attempts to update the already updated tale are mostly hollow, and its ensemble of pretty young actors mostly forgettable. It’s vaguely watchable on its Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox terms, and for all of its excesses of elongation, individual episodes remain briskly under 45 minutes.

“Cruel Intentions” offers nothing new, enticing or sexy, except for the Olivia Rodrigo bangers laced throughout the first season. A storyline centered on the perils of Greek life feels as stale and outdated as the early 2000s patent-leather platform stilettos Caroline wears every day.

Nobody has any chemistry, and – because it’s all stretched across eight episodes – what little momentum there is quickly dissipates, even with the occasional sex tape or embezzlement scandal.

You’re just left cringing. A core plot about a fraternity hazing gone wrong, which results in a powerful Congressman’s son (Khobe Clarke) being brain damaged, feels half-soaked, while the relationship between the main siblings plays as icky rather than sexually-charged.

Cruel Intentions tries to be edgy but only ends up being eye-rollingly bad, with characters that are very easily hateable and stakes that are so low, you wonder why everyone is expending all this energy in the first place.