It proves how hard it is to make a remarkable film like Get Out or Us...this works on paper but doesn't earn its keep on screen.

| Apr 6, 2021

The visual style (lots of slow-mo) is sometimes overdone. But the ideas are alive, Monáe is a star and the drama is quietly unsettling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 2, 2021

It's an audacious swing - but ultimately a miss from a pair of filmmakers who know exactly what they want to say, and haven't yet mastered how best to say it.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 1, 2021

Antebellum doesn't so much concertina the past and the present as do a leering jig back and forth, then blow you a callous raspberry instead.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 1, 2021

Antebellum offers neither a coherent social commentary nor - thanks to its pat, ahistorical ending - a revenge thriller's catharsis.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 1, 2021

Monáe aside, the cast should perhaps have been reminded that their performances were actually being filmed.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 31, 2021

Who is this movie for? Antebellum's portrayal of slavery is neither revolutionary nor unique.

| Mar 16, 2021

Antebellum sprinkles its under-considered plot with elements that recur but are never explained... Meanwhile, the more difficult questions behind Antebellum's world-building choices go unaddressed.

| Jan 20, 2021

In the end, "Antebellum" will inspire conversation, just probably not the one the filmmakers anticipated.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 30, 2020

At its heart, and at its best, Antebellum is a grand play on what we know people really mean when they shout to "Make America Great Again."

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 23, 2020

The style of the direction is so lurid and the performances are so florid that they become ends in themselves and never mind the message no matter how timely it is in the current climate.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 30, 2020

Worst of all, that final reveal simply doesn't work. It's a grand, if blindingly obvious, political statement that screams, "We care!" without any weight.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 25, 2020

With luck, Monáe will be cast in more roles as smart as she is. This one is merely clever - a grimly "provocative" entertainment whose greater meanings are gone with the wind.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 21, 2020

Not every horror film with a social message can be Get Out, and they shouldn't be striving to imitate that.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 20, 2020

It loads up on visceral scares and disturbing imagery in service of a shallow film that feels like a gory theme-park ride showcasing the horrors of slavery.

| Sep 19, 2020

Even if we didn't live in a country where a shockingly large fraction of people think Confederate monuments are A-O.K., Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz's Antebellum would resonate like the boom of a Union Army cannon.

| Sep 19, 2020

Antebellum presents a powerful idea, but then just hands you a surface level presentation of it. While I'm very eager to see what Bush and Renz do next, it's unfortunate that Antebellum had so much potential but failed to add to the conversation.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 19, 2020

A well-made drama on slavery's horrors builds to an exasperating ending...After all the sadistic violence, the big twist is a big bust.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 18, 2020

This socially-conscious horror film with systemic racism as the monster trips over its ambitions, but Janelle Monae in her first starring role burns with ferocity and feeling.

| Sep 18, 2020

If you're paying attention, you can figure out the mystery at Antebellum's center within its first 10 minutes.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Sep 18, 2020