The 2024 remake of Speak No Evil earns James McAvoy’s best Rotten Tomatoes audience score since 2014. Directed by James Watkins, the movie follows couple Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise Dalton (Mackenzie Davis) as they visit the home of Paddy (James McAvoy), a man whom they met on vacation in Italy, alongside his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and son Ant (Dan Hough). While the family appears to be friendly and welcoming, the Daltons soon find out that they are not who they say they are, and a dark secret is revealed.
Audiences are now rating the movie on Rotten Tomatoes, and the score is McAvoy’s highest since 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. At the time of publication of this article, the audience score sits at 85% based on over 250 verified ratings. This is exactly the same as the critics’ score, which has a certified fresh 85% approval rating based on 141 reviews. The score is likely to fluctuate as more ratings get tabulated throughout the week.
Speak No Evil Is James McAvoy’s Best-Reviewed Film In Years
Atomic Blonde Is His Last Film To Get A Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score Over 75%.
The Rotten Tomatoes score for Speak No Evil is also his best-reviewed movie in a long time. His most recent film to get a decent amount of praise from critics was 2017’s Atomic Blonde, which currently sits at a 79% approval rating on the aggregate website. It’s also the last movie before Speak No Evil to get a critics’ score higher than 75%, while the audience scores for his subsequent projects fluctuated from as low as 32% with Wim Wenders’ Submergence to as high as 80%, with The Book of Clarence, with the latter receiving mixed reviews from critics.
|
James McAvoy Movies |
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score |
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score |
|
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) |
90% |
91% |
|
Victor Frankenstein (2015) |
26% |
37% |
|
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) |
47% |
65% |
|
Split (2017) |
78% |
79% |
|
Atomic Blonde (2017) |
79% |
64% |
|
Submergence (2017) |
22% |
32% |
|
Sherlock Gnomes (2018) |
27% |
36% |
|
Glass (2019) |
37% |
66% |
|
Dark Phoenix (2019) |
22% |
64% |
|
It: Chapter Two (2019) |
62% |
78% |
|
Together (2021) |
71% |
57% |
|
My Son (2021) |
40% |
39% |
|
The Book of Clarence (2024) |
67% |
80% |
|
Speak No Evil (2024) |
85% |
85% |
Most of his post-Atomic Blonde films weren’t met with overwhelming critical and commercial praise. For instance, 2019’s Dark Phoenix is the worst-reviewed X-Men film of the main franchise, sitting at a 22% approval rating, much lower than X-Men: Origins – Wolverine‘s 38%. It also has one of the most disappointing box office, becoming the lowest-grossing of the then-20th Century Fox franchise with only $252.4 million globally out of a $200 million budget.
While some were better received than others, such as It: Chapter Two, which had mixed reviews but was a box-office success, it’s safe to say that McAvoy hasn’t had a critical hit in a long time. With the remake of Speak No Evil, not only is the overall film well received by critics and audiences, but even those who weren’t positive about it praised McAvoy’s performance as the movie’s best aspect. Here’s hoping this renewed success for the actor will continue with the projects he is currently working on.
Speak No Evil is based on the 2022 Danish movie of the same name directed by Christian Tafdrup, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival of that same year with massive critical acclaim.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
