An appealing reboot.

| Feb 19, 2020

This is a very strange movie... They've taken one of the coolest, suavest characters in movie history and cast him in this multigenerational "grumpy old dad" sitcom.

| Oct 1, 2019

The blaxploitation hero's new reboot/revamp/retcon is the most depressing movie of the year.

| Jun 30, 2019

[Shaft is] the worst and most problematic film of 2019-or any other year, for that matter.

| Original Score: F | Jun 21, 2019

It stinks to heaven.

| Jun 15, 2019

Middle generation Shaft looks good roaring around in his souped-up Monte Carlo SS. It's too bad the characters as a whole didn't have a better vehicle.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 14, 2019

Tim Story's update of the blaxploitation classic is shamelessly regressive. Male dinosaurs again walk the earth with misogynistic and homophobic impunity. These are the laughs, folks. Don't be surprised if they stick in your throat.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 14, 2019

What the new Shaft movie doesn't have, aside from raw gumption or style, is a context that makes it seem urgent.

| Jun 14, 2019

This movie is 'ruin your childhood' bad, right down to the hideous auto-tuned end credits song they chose to use instead of the original 'Theme From Shaft.'

| Original Score: .5/4 | Jun 14, 2019

Ultimately, the only truly retro thing about this weirdly reactionary potboiler is its politics.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jun 14, 2019

This feels more like a junior-grade, not particularly well thought out Harlem-set Beverly Hills Cop reboot than it does a gritty, hard-edged Shaft sequel.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 14, 2019

Cheerfully retro past the point of winking at us, through the point of smirking at us, up to the point of pushing back in favor of toxic masculinity.

| Original Score: C | Jun 14, 2019

[T]his movie isn't smart enough to find any comic inspiration in the generation gap between Shaft Prime and Shaft Sr. It just makes them both Cranky Old Heavily-Armed Guys.

| Jun 14, 2019

In its neediness to be liked, the new Shaft - the third of five films in the series to be titled, simply, Shaft - says everything and nothing.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 13, 2019

Whether you take this iteration of the character as an affectionate throwback or a cringe-worthy anachronism, it's hard to watch "Shaft" without feeling a little wistful.

| Jun 13, 2019

We can dig what Barbershop's Tim Story is up to with his 2019 version of Shaft, if only for the excellent chemistry between Roundtree, Jackson and new hire Jessie T. Usher...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 13, 2019

An action comedy that's neither consistently funny nor especially exciting, despite Samuel L. Jackson's second stab at the part.

| Jun 13, 2019

A strange, angry attack on modernity that feels like the result of a group of bitter men griping about the metrosexualisation of a younger generation.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 13, 2019

A fluffy update of a gritty classic.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 13, 2019

Remember "Shaft"? How about more "Shaft," but with more hacky jokes about millennials and an incredibly ugly homophobic streak?

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 13, 2019