Regardless the various attempts at shock value (with scenes involving self-mutilation and abortion) seem downright desperate.

| Mar 16, 2020

Just like Possession, this tale of stylized hysteria is an absolute scream.

| Feb 12, 2020

In the latest goofy provocation from a director who never saw a space-dank dungeon or sunny bedroom-upon which he couldn't unleash a swirly-twirly camera, Noé puts a pansexual, multicultural dance troupe through its paces before sending them to hell.

| Mar 21, 2019

In "Enter the Void," he used this effect to mirror the experience of a hallucination. But here, it seems the bad boy is running out of tricks, and he's hammering your skull just to prove he can keep doing it.

| Original Score: C | Mar 15, 2019

You just have to figure out if it's a ride you want to take.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 12, 2019

Alas, with the notable exception of the empathetic Boutella, the cast of Climax consists primarily of dancers who are not actors.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 8, 2019

It's the filmic equivalent of hot sauce that's spicy but doesn't have any flavor.

| Mar 8, 2019

Cranking up the decibels, and with nausea-inducing camera work, it's a sensual overload that will have your heart pounding.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 8, 2019

Surprisingly, hell turns out to be not very interesting when seen close up, and "Climax" is a bad trip that crashes before its characters do.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 6, 2019

Noé has made what might be his most accessible and, yes, tender film to date, teasing the idea of heavenly bliss - before heading straight to hell.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 5, 2019

This numbingly dull drama, directed by Gaspar Noé, decorates its petty moralism with flashy displays of violence.

| Mar 4, 2019

Climax feels as emotionally hollow as a middle-schooler spouting curse words for shock value, and just as juvenile.

| Mar 2, 2019

I've fallen down too many breakdancing-video K-holes on Vine and YouTube, with their hyperactive visual style and knack for intricate displays of personality, to buy anything being sold to me here.

| Mar 2, 2019

These characters will keep dancing until and perhaps even beyond the bitter end, but their altered state never threatens to become your own.

| Mar 1, 2019

[Noe's] grandiose and more than a little bit mad. If you think too hard about what Climax means, the film deflates.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 1, 2019

The drawback, as Noé veterans will anticipate, is that his style trumps - no, obliterates - the scenario. Climax becomes steadily less thrilling as it approaches its, you know ... peak.

| Mar 1, 2019

It's Busby Berkeley by way of Hieronymus Bosch. It's a dance party set in an upper-circle tier of hell. It's a great approximation of a very bad trip.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 28, 2019

It's just testing the audience's patience.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 28, 2019

"Climax" strives (and mostly succeeds) to be the nuttiest, trippiest dance party you'll ever attend.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 28, 2019

Climax is the best Noé has been in ages, and perhaps the most humane film he's ever done.

| Feb 28, 2019