Gigli - Reception

Reception

Gigli was considered a bomb, often called the worst movie of 2003, grossing less than $4 million in its opening weekend after costing $75 million to produce. Critical reception was extremely negative. Gigli scored 7% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 157 reviews, with the overall consensus being: "Bizarre and clumsily plotted, Gigli is a mess. As for its stars, Affleck and Lopez lack chemistry." It scored an 18% on Metacritic based on 37 reviews, meaning "extreme dislike".

Gigli also scored just a 7% on Rotten Tomatoes' "Cream of the Crop" section, a three among notable critics at Rotten Tomatoes and a 2.3 among Metacritic's users. Gigli also set a record for the biggest second-weekend drop in box office gross of any film in wide release since that statistic was kept; it dropped by almost 82 percent in its second weekend compared to its first. By its third weekend in release, only 73 U.S. theaters were showing it, down from 2,215 during its first weekend, a drop of 97 percent.

On Ebert and Roeper, critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper both gave the film thumbs down, although Ebert showed some sympathy towards the film, stating it had "clever dialogue", but was "... too disorganized for me to recommend it." Roeper called the film "a disaster" and "one of the worst movies I've ever seen". He then included Gigli on his 100 worst movies of the decade at #7.

Its title was named by the Global Language Monitor as one of the top words from Hollywood having an impact on the English language in 2003. Late night talk show hosts in particular lampooned the film in their monologues; Conan O'Brien said "The Mets are doing so badly that they will be renamed 'The New York Gigli.'" The film was withdrawn from U.S. theatres after only three weeks (one of the shortest circulation times for a big-budget movie), earning a total of only $6 million domestically and $1 million abroad. In the UK, the film was dropped by virtually every cinema after critics panned it.

The film was nominated for nine and received six Razzies in the 2003 Golden Raspberry Awards – Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Couple. For a film to win the "Academy Awards grand slam", it must win the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Writing, Screenplay. Conversely, winning those awards' Razzie counterparts makes Gigli one of the only two films ever to achieve the "Razzie grand slam" (the other being Jack and Jill). A year later, the film won a seventh Razzie for "Worst Comedy of Our First 25 Years."

Currently, Yahoo! Movies rates Gigli number one on their Bottom Rated Movies of All Time, with a critics' rating of D−. The Onion, a satirical newspaper, ran an article about the film, titled "Gigli focus groups demand new ending in which Affleck and Lopez die." Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli, while panning the film, were two of the very few critics to not write it off completely. Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "They didn't quite get to where they wanted to be, but the film is worth seeing for some very good scenes." Berardinelli gave it two stars, saying, "This isn't a good film, but, when set alongside the likes of Dumb and Dumberer and Legally Blonde 2, Jen & Ben offer less pain."

Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "C+", stating "A watchable bad movie, but it's far from your typical cookie-cutter blockbuster. There are no shoot-outs or car chases, and there isn't much romantic suspense, either."

A rare positive review came from Amy Dawes of Variety. She wrote that the story was ludicrous and that the film would tank, but that on balance she found it a fun film with several good performances. Her review was the only positive one out of 37 reviews from notable critics according to Rotten Tomatoes. Although hers was the only positive one on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert's was the highest rated on Metacritic.

Perhaps the only element of the film that received any noticeable positive attention was Justin Bartha's performance as the mentally handicapped younger brother. Even some of the critics who were completely panning the film gave a sliver of positivity when mentioning Bartha's performance, although others (particularly Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper) found the character manipulative and derivative of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Nonetheless, his performance did nothing to overshadow the film's nearly unanimous bad reviews.