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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Charlie St. Cloud

EMAILPRINTUniversal Pictures

Charlie St. Cloud reviews
37
6.0 User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 30 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 11 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: Craig Pearce
Lewis Colick

Directed by: Burr Steers

Release Date:
Theatrical: July 30, 2010

Running Time: 109 minutes, Color

Origin: USA | Canada

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for language including some sexual references, an intense accident scene and some sensuality

Starring Zac Efron, Amanda Crew, Donal Logue, Charlie Tahan, Kim Basinger, and Ray Liotta

Accomplished sailor Charlie St. Cloud has the adoration of mother Claire and little brother Sam, as well as a college scholarship that will lead him far from his sleepy Pacific Northwest hometown. But his bright future is cut short when a tragedy strikes and takes his dreams with it. After his high-school classmate Tess returns home unexpectedly, Charlie grows torn between honoring a promise he made four years earlier and moving forward with newfound love. And as he finds the courage to let go of the past for good, Charlie discovers the soul most worth saving is his own. (Universal Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A delicate film - not flimsy, but fragile - that holds together on the strength of Efron's physical presence and performance.

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70

Movieline Michelle Orange

The vehicle may get a little jacked up along the way, but its passenger arrives in style: The kid’s a star.

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63

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The byplay between Efron and newcomer Tahan as his brother has a warmth and intimacy that establish the film's tone. The performances carry the film.

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60

Variety Dennis Harvey

Religious overtones, however, could make this the rare mainstream feature that connects with the faith-based entertainment market.

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60

Village Voice Aaron Hillis

This handsomely shot melodrama has a twist too peculiar to dismiss as some two-bit Nicholas Sparks weepie.

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50

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

The movie’s central gimmick isn’t enough, and when more supernatural twists that don’t play by the movie’s own fantasy rules kick in, it lost me.

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50

New York Observer Rex Reed

One thing that defies debate: Zac Efron is going places as an actor of value. But he deserves better movies than Charlie St. Cloud.

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50

Arizona Republic Kerry Lengel

Guilt, grief and the struggle to move on are big themes, but unfortunately, director Burr Steers and his script writers aren't interested in exploring them.

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50

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Charlie St. Cloud is primarily a vehicle to prove the actor can do more than dance and sing. It's more of a demo reel for Efron than a movie. His predominant fan base, though, won't mind a bit.

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50

Boxoffice Magazine Vadim Rizov

The surprises really do surprise but often because they're remarkably stupid and poorly explained.

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50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film is memorable mainly for attractive people sailing and smooching against an attractive backdrop. There’s no urgency behind all the preening.

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50

USA Today Claudia Puig

The movie tries to capture the crushing weight of loss, but between the insipid pop tunes and the repetitive shots cutting away to a lighthouse on a scenic outcropping, it feels more like a film version of a condolence card.

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42

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The surreal thing is, Zac Efron can't do despair.

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40

Time Out New York Keith Uhlich

Cue those weepy violins. Indeed, you get everything you’d expect from this mostly saccharine melodrama.

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40

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Though the soundtrack comes on kind of heavy, the cinematography (by Enrique Chediak) has a beautiful clarity. Yorick’s skull or not, Charlie St. Cloud is no Shakespearean drama, but the film should prove to be another solid stepping stone for Efron on his way to a long adult career.

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40

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

For now, Efron remains an unrealized dream and Charlie St. Cloud an unrealized movie, though judging from the "ooohhs" and "awwwws" from the audience, for his core tween-girl fans, that's more than enough.

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40

NPR Mark Jenkins

This ode to "moving on" from grief packs so little genuine emotion that it will touch only the most susceptible of viewers.

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40

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Though it was directed by Burr Steers, Charlie St. Cloud feels more like a misguided collaboration among Nicholas Sparks, M. Night Shyamalan and Billy Graham.

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38

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

It's more like a shelved episode of "Touched by An Angel." The sappy script is a disservice to the naturally effervescent Efron, whose character is so mopey he makes Robert Pattinson seem like a song-and-dance man.

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38

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

It has no pulse, no apparent breath.

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38

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Director Burr Steers milks them dry, like an overeager farmer at milking time, which is a paradox since this is the wettest picture of 2010, what with the sea spray and Efron's tear ducts and the general metaphysical mist.

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38

Premiere John DeVore

Ultimately, the reason Charlie St. Cloud loses its momentum is because a love triangle between a grieving man, a beautiful woman from his past, and a spectral shade is just too strange.

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38

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Clumsily incorporates elements of "Ghost," "The Sixth Sense," and "Field of Dreams."

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38

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Charlie St. Cloud, like its star Zac Efron, is a gorgeous, unblemished thing. Both would be much improved with a tiny flaw or two.

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30

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The film doesn't just fail, it actually gets sillier by the minute.

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30

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The scenes in which Charlie plays catch with the ghost of his Red Sox-happy brother are only the most mawkish in a movie whose every element is calculated to set a 12-year-old girl's heart thumping.

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25

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A maudlin and unintentionally hilarious romantic weepie.

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25

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

What “serious” means for young actors, as we know from Miley Cyrus’s "The Last Song," is maudlin, and Charlie St. Cloud is no exception.

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25

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Some bad movies should carry a leper's bell to warn off ticket buyers. Such a contagion is Charlie St. Cloud, a load of mawkish swill starring Zac Efron (bereft of the talent he showed in "Me and Orson Welles").

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20

The New York Times A.O. Scott

You are not, in a movie like this, supposed to think too much; you are supposed to be transported beyond skepticism on a wave of pure, tacky feeling. Instead, in this case, you drown in sentimental, ghoulish nonsense.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ken B gave it a7:
Pretty good movie. Has some sad parts, (a couple of girls were crying a few seats over). All things considered, I'm glad I saw it.

Alan G gave it a0:
I thought Zac was bad in High School Musical. This movie sucks so much!! The plot is bad, the acting sucks, and its so retarded!! I liked 17 Again better!

Chad S gave it a4:
Charlie(Zac Efron) sees dead people, but he's not dead, technically. As the surviving brother of a fiery car accident, "Charlie St. Cloud" oversells the point of Charlie being dead inside by having him labor in a graveyard. Yes, we get it. Time stands still for the living, too; the living dead, just like the caretaker, a selective clairvoyant who only sees dead people he knows. Played by Zac Efron, the star of "High School Musical" has already demonstrated more acting chops than Miley Cyrus last year in Richard Linklater's "Me and Orson Welles", ingratiating himself admirably within an ensemble setting and indie context, but "Charlie St. Cloud" fails to capitalize on his good notices from, most surprisingly of all, a period-piece. Like Johnny Depp, and many other teen idols before him, Efron certainly doesn't want to be singing showtunes like a Jeff Conaway in "Grease", a grown man in his late-twenties who was still playing teenagers, but this actor in transition makes the mistake of catering to his old audience by remaining impeccably handsome against all probability, since most cars that roll over repeatedly on a highway, usually entails that driver and passenger suffer some form of serious injury. At his brother's funeral, the surviving McCloud should be in a wheelchair, and sport some evidence of having been involved in a vehicular crash, somewhere on his face. Depp, who once donned scissorshands to distance himself from his television work("21 Jump Street"), would have insisted on playing the scene, at the very least, with a bandaged nose(ala Jack Nicholson in Roman Polanski's "Chinatown"). Because of Efron's vanity, "Charlie St. Cloud" is a lot less darker than it lets on; it never really captures the tragedy of Charlie's wasted potential because you can't root for a down-and-out guy who looks like an underwear model. It's also hard to root for Sam(Charlie Tahan), who keeps his brother in purgatory for five years, then comes back and has the gall to tell Charlie how to live, after having seen the light, after all of his emotional blackmail. "Charlie St. Cloud", in a nutshell, is "The Sixth Sense" with Christian values. Like the boy in the M. Night Shyamalan classic, Charlie has to help a dead person, but unlike Cole, he's painfully slow to mobilize, only doing so after undergoing a spiritual awakening. "Charlie St. Cloud" gives the slightest suggestion that only religious people do brave things, when a friend's wife supplies Charlie with the motivation to be a hero, once she hands the previously godless man a devotional token. Being an alcoholic might have explained Charlie's initial listlessness, but Efron just isn't ready to go there yet. Efron needs to get ugly. He needed to tell Sam about the futility of baseball practice. He needs to alienate the girls. Before it can be an asset, Efron, like Depp before him, has to treat his face like a curse.

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