High-Rise's reviews
Media reviews
Hitfix
Wheatley is all about control of tone and how he's using this big obvious metaphor. His film is alive with human behavior, heightened at times and stylized as hell, but alive and identifiable and crackling with a wicked energy.
El Mundo
An kubrickian and ambitious journey to the heart of dementia. (...) The impact that the film (...) places the British director in another league, determined to compete with the greatest filmmakers of contemporary cinema.
Empire
Batshit crazy. Don?t expect a thriller in the seat-edge sense, but you will be thrilled ? and repulsed ? by this bold, faithful adaptation of Ballard?s ever-prescient picture of First World strife.
Screen Daily
Working with writer (and co-editor) Amy Jump again, Wheatley wades into the prescient 1975 text, delivering a complex, fluid interpretation which is respectful and almost-faithful while still being its own beautiful, crazed beast.
The Telegraph
Ballard?s concept is meticulously, lovingly recreated, like a museum exhibit of itself. But the tone is always more playful than it is disturbing, a walled-off black joke which opts out of saying anything new.
Indiewire
'High-Rise' isn't an entirely cohesive accomplishment, but that's part of its zany appeal. While in certain ways his weakest film, it maintains the morbid entertainment value found throughout Wheatley's work while marking an ambitious step up in scale.
Fotogramas
The wildest, arty and ambitious proposal of the career of British filmmaker. Not suitable for moviegoers stomachs of soft digestion.
Cinemanía
Works, despite the hubris (...) This building ordered by caste, Babel dystopian real estate in the hands of the upper classes, just stunning, but holds the stake, achieving stubborn filmmaker.
Variety
What began as a self-contained allegory on open class warfare becomes a showcase for stylistic anarchy, wherein the ensuing orgy of sex and violence serves to justify a near-total breakdown of cinematic form.
The Playlist
Screenwriter Amy Jump and director Ben Wheatley are less concerned with the message than with the madness, and their resulting picture is heavier on style than substance.
The Hollywood Reporter
Of course, it is still better to make an ambitious failure than a boring success. A true disaster movie, in all senses, 'High-Rise' is ultimately an ambitious, brilliant failure.
The Guardian
Wheatley has made 'High Rise' his story, instead of Ballard?s. That?s fine ? but, unfortunately, it?s a less interesting take.
El País
I've seen too much stupid thing (...) to exhibit tirelessly and free the first allegedly brilliant idiocy that has been the creator occurred on the fly.
ABC
Over chaos, insanity and effectively inanez fly several symbologies about the world we build, and the fact that are topical and something stupid doesn't take away the bitterness finale.