Reception
| Professional reviews | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | (61/100) |
| Rotten Tomatoes | (80%) |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmovie | |
| Entertainment Weekly | (A−) |
| Roger Ebert | |
| ReelViews | |
| Empire | |
| Total Film | |
| Film4 | |
The film received positive reviews from critics with an 80% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 and a half stars out of four, writing "The film is a shade over three hours long. I appreciated the extra time, which allows us to feel the passage of prison months and years."
Forbes commentator Dawn Mendez referred to the character of John Coffey as a "'magic Negro' figure"—a term coined by Spike Lee to describe a stereotypical fictional black person depicted in a fictional work as a "saintly, nonthreatening" person whose purpose in life is to solve a problem for or otherwise further the happiness of a white person. Lee himself berated the character as one of several "super-duper, magical Negro" depicting a skewed version of the black male, claiming it was due to the prominence of white decision makers in the media companies.
Read more about this topic: The Green Mile (film)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)