Critics Are Not Impressed With 'The Giver'

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"The Giver" was once a controversy in the classroom as whether or not to feature the book in school curriculum became an issue because of its content, not the new film featuring Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges seem to meet many negative reviews.

"In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world," is the synopsis of "The Give" film according to IMDB.com.

See what critics are saying about this controversial book and movie below.

"So the initial setup for the story is engaging enough, but Noyce and cinematographer Ross Emery have shot the whole thing in generic digital fake black-and-white, so it looks like a late-'90s TV commercial for a soon-to-be-recalled compact car," said Andrew O'Hhehir, of Salon.

"Nothing Jonas learns from Bridges - there used to be fun, and also war - explains a single damn thing about how and why this Hermann Goring brain-fart of a future world came to be, and by the time we get to Jonas' escape, everyone involved with this picture is visibly chafing for it to be over."

"Streep is wizardly at putting fresh inflections into the film's most repeated lines - "I apologize" and "I accept your apology" - and no one is better than Bridges at conveying unvarnished empathy," said Michael Sragow, of the OC Register.

"(He even pours his heart into tear-jerking flashbacks involving the Giver's daughter.) But their give-and-take grows increasingly heavy-handed and banal. Not even Streep and Bridges can lift "The Giver" beyond the level of a post-apocalyptic after-school special."

"In truth, the enervating hash of dystopian dread, vague religiosity and commercial advertising-style uplift is nothing if not stale," said Manohla Dargis of the NY Times.

As Streep and Bridges may have given amazing efforts in the film but for the critics it was not enough to save it from being an overall post-apocalyptic teenage film. The Giver is rated PG-13 and is now in theaters.

Head over to Rotten Tomatoes for more reviews of the film.