Weird and not that great

mel gibson is cool, thats nothing new, but the fight with the beaver, the coffin, ... wtf?

Mel Gibson is a good actor, but when he plays in a drama movie where things can go really bad he's like a sci-fi hero, Drama movies can have a very bad endings, the director is very bad and for sure i prefer to the beaver than to see Jodie Foster.

Felled by a mediocre filmmaker's fealty to narrative convention and hackneyed sentimentality, The Beaver defies perhaps the best performance of the perpetually blighted Mel Gibson's career to become a study in banality and folly. Save for two isolated scenes, Foster's film fails to exploit an intriguing concept's potential for converse hilarity and horror. Rather, it relies on the same basic maneuvers as your average teen romcom, being no better -- in fact worse -- than, say, The Girl Next Door.

Doesn't quite make the most of its premise, and if anything suffers from being a little too short and the resulting underdevelopment of some of the characters. Gibson is excellent and Fosters direction is solid, if largely uninspired. "The Beaver" is at its best on the odd occasions where it is being darkly comic and the focus is on Gibson. It's at its worst while exploring the awfully cliche Lawrence/Yelchin relationship. A few bonus marks for Frightened Rabbit in the soundtrack.

"Mel Gibson's passion is vanquished by his collaborators' retreat into boilerplate sentimentality." - Bill Weber

great casting/performances

I thought it was kinda weird about the whole puppet thing but Mel did a great job as usual and I'm not a huge fan of Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence is really pretty.

So many interesting ideas, so much bad execution. That being said Gibson is fantastic. I really wish we could get over this anti-semitic thing...can I say that? Eh who cares. Guy can act. This film needed more time to breathe, more scenes focusing on the man behind the Beaver, less time with Anton Yelchin (if any time at all). If it had that, it could have been an excellent dark comedy. As it stands, it's a fairly entertaining demo tape for Gibson (give the man a fucking role).

'The Beaver' rarely has a bad scene and it's full of top-notch performances. What Jodie Foster fails to do with the film is illuminate Gibson's character beyond his insanity. As is, the character of Walter feels... a bit dangerous and distant to the audience's empathy. What is he exactly? What happened to him to drive him into such depression? Is the beaver supernatural or a creation of Walter's? Whether you buy into 'the beaver' character will determine the film's fate. I'm on the fence.

Curious movie. What it lacks polish it makes up for in uniqueness. Gibson is terrific and practically nomination worthy. Uneven, but worth seeing. And I'm a sucker for Lawrence.

Makes a few mistakes. Mostly the subplot with the son being poor and the story doesn't seem to progress in a way that feels natural (again probably due to the split focus). It's a good performance and a bold attempt at dealing with something very real in an unusual way. For that it gets bonus points.

very good 10 out of 10

As much as I dislike films containing depression, puppetry and self-mutilation, this wasn't half bad. The story worked mainly due to the son's relationship with Jennifer Lawrence and non-relationship with Mel. These two choices made him very relatable. Mel's whole beaver thing didn't add much, but wasn't as annoying as I feared. In general the whole film just had a good tone and was well-directed, paced and edited. Plenty of sensible choices by Ms Foster, better behind the camera than in front.

I know that a lot of people will be put off not only because this is a drama starring Mel Gibson, but also because it features Mel Gibson and a sentient puppet. These kinds of things sometimes can't be overcome now matter how open minded you want to be. But if both of these things aren't too much of a turn-off, I definitely have to give it a recommendation. I went in expecting a film so bad that it would be a riot, and I ended up with a touching drama about a man in a terrible state of mind.

good job.

Mala. No se donde se creen que esta pelicula es una comedia. Es un drama, que encima se sobrepasa (para mal) para lo que el espectador tiene como preconcepto de esta pelicula.

A superb performance from Mel Gibson. It's too bad the guy's a haven for controversy because he really is a very good actor. Other areas fall flat, namely the awful subplot involving Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence.

The premise seems really dumb, but Gibson does sell it really well, and it is interesting for a while before it gets competely ridiculous again.

Jodie's therapeutic drama about depression just couldn't work with such a clumsy lack of authenticity and lazy inspirational lines. In a way, this ridiculous, shameful feature is like her version of the Fight Club. But with a creepy beaver as Tyler Durden, of course.

Quirky indie flicks work mostly due to charm and fresh ideas. The Beaver definitely has an interesting concept but that concept just didn't hold up over the course of the entire film & the tone of it felt a little cold & emotionless.

Not great by any means but well worth a watch, and not as bad as you might imagine given the absurd premise. Gibson is very good.

interesting approach, but not consequent enough to be taken seriously. especially how walters crisis is resolved seems a bit rushed and makes his whole episode pointless.

The ending speech and the resolution of the love subplot between Lawrence and Yelchin ruined an otherwise really brilliant dark dramedy. Fortunately the acting is great throughout the cast and thus it softens these negative parts.

The similarities to Fight Club are surprising.

A lot of potential, very good drama but lacks something to be truly great.

A+ for Gibson...

Ok, Gibson is cool like a mad man in Lethal Weapon but here is so naive....

Offbeat drama is deeply moving and very affecting if you can reasonably accept the central premise. Gibson gives possibly the performance of his career, and Foster the actor and director manages to navigate tricky material with great skill, also eliciting fine performances from the rest of her cast. Subplot involving Yelchin and Lawrence is also well handled, though it is a long bow to draw to link it to the main storyline. An unexpected treat.

nice try on a stupid premise

"Gibson again stares deeply into the abyss. The question is whether-after his public disgrace-anyone will want to go there with him."

Someone give Gibson more parts, the man is triumphant. Him & Yelchin alone make this work. Foster is unconvincing as actor & director, the plot is a bit of a shambles (though in parts good), but from about halfway in and on it has a lovable charm, a sharp drive and a touching realism despite its absurdity, which along with some great acting and genuine characterizations make this enjoyable, if a bit silly. The "moral" in the end of the graduation speech is very tacked on and out of place though.

Ventriloquism -- seeing and speaking through others -- is Foster's metaphor for the compassion that art ought to elicit, but that even the Hollywood community of "artists" has failed in making Gibson a pariah.

Holy shit was this movie awful. Yes, Gibson is good, but every other thing about it is absurd. And I'm not just talking about the Beaver itself - the character arcs are absurd, the depiction of Gibson's toy company's newfound success is absurd, Jennifer Lawrence and Anton Yelchin's relationship is absurd, everything is absurd. Made 90 minutes feel like five hours. I was squirming and repeatedly glancing at the theater exit in anticipation by the blissful end.

No matter what kind of differences Gibson has with his environment, this was no doubt a great achievement. While Hollywood turns his back on him, he proves that he his a great actor. A sick and depressed man, who cut onself off his personality, by creating a fictional alter ego in terms of the beaver. Now you can call this ridiculous, but I think this movie works very well. In fact "The Beaver" can be seen as a psychological metaphor.

Everything with Mel is excellent. Everything without Mel is awful. Take away the puppet and the script is one cliche after another. The B plot with the teenage son is all but worthless (a true resolution would have the father breaking the cycle). Unsatisfying ending. Funny as Hell though. As a whole, had to give it a mediocre rating overall.

A ridiculous premise, but a surprisingly good performance from Mel Gibson saves it from total disaster. Equally surprising are the middling performances of the rest of what should have been an excellent cast.

It's not good but it's also not as bad as you would think considering the laughable premise.

The cast make it worthwhile.

It has ambition, which says something, and Gibson and Yelchin are both good. Too bad the vast majority of it is way too ridiculous to be believed. I knew I would have to suspend some disbelief, but after awhile the characters and their relationships got so out there that it was either too melodramatic or unintentionally funny. Also everything to do with the toy company was terrible.

Everything goes out to Gibsons performance even though he sounds a lot like Ray Winstone, which had me a bit confused at times ;-) With that said The Beaver suffers from it's rather funny premise and it doesnt know whether it would like to tell the story of Walter, The Beaver, His oldest son or the family. Sure it would probably work on some psychological level but it never fully explores its potential. And the climax, which resembles a Dennis Jürgensen novel, crash and burns...

What can one really say in response to a film where Mel Gibson talks to a puppet?

I understand what they were TRYING to do, but people might get the wrong idea and think this a comedy. They will be disappointed. otoh, it does a very good job of showing that depression/mental illness is not a choice for far too many.

Fine performances by everyone--particularly Mel--but the premise is so absurd that it often doesn't pass the laugh test. What should have been the most gut-wrenching scene reminded me way too much of the hilarious "Farewell to Arms" sequence from "Evil Dead II" . . .and that is not a good thing for this movie. My hunch is that only a great director could have brought this off, and could have done so only by making us believe in the reality of The Beaver. Foster. although good, but not great.

The directing was solid and the theme important, even much better than I expected, but I have to admit the story was kind of blunt in the end. And I'm clad Jennifer "Winter Bones" Lawrence's got good parts with big names. She's a rising star.