Jack Quaid in Novocaine.”
Novacaine — a new action comedy starring Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder and Jacob Batalon — is new in theaters Are critics groaning or laughing at the pain-filled movie?
Rated R, Novocaine opens in theaters nationwide on Friday. The logline for Novocaine reads, “When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped, a man incapable of feeling physical pain turns his rare condition into an unexpected advantage in the fight to rescue her.”
Quaid (The Boys) plays Nate Caine in Novocaine, an assistant bank manager in San Diego who springs into action when three bank robbers dressed as Santa Claus rob his bank and take his girlfriend, Sherry (Midthunder, Prey) hostage.
Batalon (Spider-Man: No Way Home) stars as Roscoe, Nate’s video game-playing partner, while Ray Nicholson (Smile 2) plays Simon, the mastermind behind the bank heist.
Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, Novocaine also stars Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh, Lou Beatty Jr., Van Hengst and Conrad Kemp.
As of Thursday, Rotten Tomatoes critics have collectively given Novocaine an 80% “fresh” rating based on 94 reviews. The RT Critics Consensus for the film reads, “Getting an adrenaline shot from Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder’s considerable charm while finding increasingly demented ways to utilize its concept, Novocaine is the opposite of a pain to watch.”
What Are Individual Critics Saying About ‘Novocaine’?
Brandon Yu is among the top critics on RT who gives Novocaine a “fresh” review, writing in his review for the New York Times, “What keeps it from deflating into tiresome shtick (which it very nearly does) is [Jack]
Quaid with his gawky, boyish charisma, an actual tough guy who just doesn’t know how to act it.”
Kyle Smith of The Wall Street Journal also gives Novocaine a “fresh” review on RT, writing, “The almost nonstop fighting and Mr. Quaid’s low-key charm are enough to make the movie a serviceable action offering. Moreover, the script, though focused on wacky spasms of violence, has a strong human element at its core.”
William Bibbiani of The Wrap also praises the lead of Novocaine for the film’s success. Bibbiani writes in his review on RT, “Jack Quaid was born for a role like this. The actor’s unassuming cheerfulness provides the perfect comedic counterpoint to the film’s increasingly absurd gross-out action gags.”
Odie Henderson of the Boston Globe is among the top critics on RT who give Novocaine a “rotten” review, writing, “It’s like watching the Black Knight get dismembered in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, except that was funny and the gag didn’t run nearly two hours. To my surprise, I was bored by the gruesome and repetitive carnage.”
Also among Novocaine’s detractors is Nick Schager of The Daily Beast, who writes in his RT summary, “In trying to have it both ways, it succeeds in neither, in the process stranding its charming leading man in a saga that needed to be either goofier or more gruesome.”
Jen Yamato of the Washington Post also gave Novocaine a “rotten” review on RT, writing, “Novocaine lives up to its name, all right — a tedious action-comedy so numbingly bland, you feel the pain of its 110-minute run time even as its protagonist can’t feel a thing.”
Novcaine opens in theaters nationwide on Friday.
