71
Metascore
16 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 91Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyEntertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyIn The Great Buster, Bogdanovich has provided a brilliantly enthralling primer.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe mix of commentators is unusual and lively, hardly the usual crowd that often pops up in documentaries like this, the clips are illustrative and on point in addition to often being eye-popping, and the film looks certain to please Keaton aficionados. Most importantly, it's likely to induce newcomers to investigate the great stone face for themselves.
- 75Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreGreat Buster turns Bogdanovich’s lifelong appreciation into cinematic adoration, using generous clips of Keaton’s short films, features and late-life TV appearances to remind us that, as Johnny Knoxville says in the movie, “he was funny then, he’s funny now and he’ll be funny 100 years from now.”
- 70The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottThe film presents a compact, tactful biography and also a valuable explication of the Keatonesque in its most sublime varieties. Coming ahead of a digital restoration of Keaton’s major films, it serves as both a primer and refresher, as well as a promise that he will not be forgotten.
- 70Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLos Angeles TimesKenneth TuranThe Great Buster briskly takes us through the stations of Keaton’s eventful life and career, mostly going the expected chronological route with one key exception.
- 67IndieWireMichael NordineIndieWireMichael NordineKeaton was an ahead-of-his-time innovator, and though Bogdanovich honors that legacy he doesn’t always live up to it: You’ll leave the film knowing more about its subject than you did when you walked in, but there’s little here that feels like it couldn’t be found in one of the many other accounts of Keaton’s life and work.
- 67The PlaylistGary GarrisonThe PlaylistGary GarrisonIt aims for simplicity, for a celebration of his unrivaled talents, and often fails to explore the complexity of the very man at its center.
- 65Film Journal InternationalEric MonderFilm Journal InternationalEric MonderWorking with Keaton’s own material, Bodganovich is too busy praising the artist to bother saying anything novel about him.
- 60VarietyJay WeissbergVarietyJay WeissbergStructured as a straightforward life story followed by an extended coda looking in detail at the features Cohen is restoring, The Great Buster can’t hold a candle to the 1987 three-part series “Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow” but will make do as a decent DVD extra.
- 58The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyThe A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyThe result feels like a DVD or Blu-ray special feature with a celebrity pedigree, rather than a movie that can stand on its own two feet.