[Jack] Quaid’s friendly aura is such a strange fit for the material, but that’s why this works so well.

| Apr 20, 2025

Novocaine is genial enough in its extreme violence to endear audiences with the capacity to endure it. It goes from fun to sicko fun.

| Apr 14, 2025

Novocaine is a fun, exciting, and boisterously bloody time at the movies that takes its novel concept, runs with it with cartoonish glee, and is led by a charming pairing in Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder. Recommended.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 12, 2025

Quaid turns in a star-making performance that proves he can carry a movie like this and make it entertaining and far away from annoying. While the box office receipts would say otherwise, it is a nice movie theater experience.

| Apr 11, 2025

Like Nathan himself, Novocaine takes modest resources and creates something unexpected. While unlikely to revolutionise the action genre, it’s a testament to how much can be done with the right lead and inventive storytelling.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 8, 2025

Half the charm of Novocaine is Jack Quaid’s screen presence, but the other half is pure commitment to the bit.

| Apr 7, 2025

Quaid has a killer grin as well as light comic timing, although you hope he goes on to better things.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 7, 2025

You’ll need to be desensitised to blood and gore, because there’s a lot of that in Novocaine. But if you want a laugh this weekend give this a shot, it won’t hurt.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 7, 2025

...[Novocaine is] billed as a comedy but the joke goes missing in the first few minutes amid the volume of blood splashed around on the screen.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 7, 2025

Jack Quaid is appealing but the movie overall is not.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 5, 2025

Berk and Olsen take the concept as far as they can, but as the drawn-out lead up to the action proves, there's not much to prop up the violence. Fortunately, in this case, violence is enough to carry the day.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 5, 2025

It's not as fun as it should be...

| Apr 4, 2025

Novocaine feels like a brainstorming session for itself, which is all very well, until you realise that the only part being fully exercised is the lizard brain.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 4, 2025

An idea masquerading as a movie.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Apr 4, 2025

It isn’t everything it could have been, but it’s a pain-free experience.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 4, 2025

Lame. Even the torture scene is yawn-inducing. Recommended only for those with an undemanding taste for things queasy.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 3, 2025

A mostly fun action outing that works more so off the involvement of the effortlessly likeable Jack Quaid.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2025

The experience as a whole is saved by a winningly wicked and unpredictable series of action sequences, and also Quaid’s deceptively endearing performance.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 2, 2025

Quaid’s personable screen presence holds things together, even as his brutally beaten body starts to fall apart. But this gory action comedy has just one joke, and like poor, battered and bleeding Nathan it starts to run out of juice.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 1, 2025

… has a lot of heart and is considerably more wholesome than you might expect from a movie that features its protagonist deep frying his own hand.

| Original Score: 15/20 | Apr 1, 2025