Lindsay Lohan does not read reviews of her performances, according to TMZ, which is a smart move when it comes to her much-publicized turn as Elizabeth Taylor in the Lifetime movie, Liz & Dick. The picture, which chronicles Taylor's tempestuous love affair with Richard Burton, doesn't air until Nov. 25, and already critics are carving into Lohan like she's a Thanksgiving turkey.
The reviews aren't uniformly poisonous, and Grant Bowler, who plays Burton, is actually drawing good notices, but Lohan has not been so fortunate. Even the most charitable critics tend to damn her with faint praise, such as Variety's Brian Lowry, who calls her performance "adequate." But that review sounds downright positive when you compare it to the Napalming Lohan got courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter. Below are distillations of five reviews from most to least positive. That's right. I saved the worst for last, and followed it with a trailer from the biopic.
5. Lohan certainly is adequate, barring a few awkward moments, thanks largely to the fabulous frocks and makeup (courtesy of Salvador Perez and Eryn Krueger Mekash, respectively) she gets to model." — Brian Lowry, Variety
4. "Lohan, in character as Taylor, is often so believable you might think you’re seeing the real thing, but then every once in a while she’ll backslide and deliver lines that sound DOA." — Linda Stasi, New York Post
3. "Elizabeth Taylor loved diamonds. This new movie about her life feels more like rhinestones....It's tempting to say the movie's big problem is that Lohan is no Liz Taylor. And she isn't — though that's not entirely her fault. There aren't all that many actresses, or women, who can stop a room simply by walking into it.
Liz Taylor in her prime could do that. She could make men melt. Lindsay Lohan's Taylor does not."— David Hinckley, New York Daily News
2. "Suffice it to say, Lohan's no Taylor (not that anyone is or ever could be). But poor Linds doesn't stand a chance. As seen here, her skills are rudimentary — made rustier by a long absence and a lot of other extracurricular activities. She delivers lines dutifully, competently, and at times woodenly, but she also looks like someone who has to think about what she has to say before she says it."
That's usually called "sleepwalking through a role" instead of actually "occupying" one. Lohan is somewhere in-between most of the time, though closer to sleepwalking." — Verne Gay, Newsday
1. "It should come as no great surprise that Lifetime’s Liz & Dick movie starring Lindsay Lohan is spectacularly bad.... Lohan is woeful as Taylor from start to finish. But, whatever you do, don’t miss Liz & Dick. It’s an instant classic of unintentional hilarity. Drinking games were made for movies like this. And the best part is that it gets worse as it goes on, so in the right company with the right beverages, Liz & Dick could be unbearably hilarious toward the tail end of the 90-minute running time. By the time Lohan is playing mid-’80s Taylor and it looks like a lost Saturday Night Live skit, your body may be cramped by convulsions."— Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter
[TMZ, Variety, New York Post, New York Daily News, Newsday, The Hollywood Reporter]
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