Javier Bardem in “Cape Fear.”
Apple TV
Javier Bardem, Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson’s Cape Fear, Apple TV’s series remake of the classic Cape Fear movies, is putting the fear in most Rotten Tomatoes critics.
Based on the 1957 novel The Executioners, by John D. McDonald, Cape Fear was first adapted as a feature film in 1962. Robert Mitchum stars in original version as the violent psychopath Max Cady opposite Gregory Peck’s Sam Bowden, the lawyer who helped put him in prison. Eight years later, Cady is released, and the ex-con seeks vengeance on Cady and his family.
In 1991, Martin Scorsese remade Cape Fear for the big screen, starring Robert De Niro as Cady, Nick Nolte as Bowden, and Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis as Bowden’s wife and daughter, Leigh and Danielle. In the new Cape Fear remake Bardem plays Cady, while Wilson and Adams play the renamed Tom and Anna Bowden — the husband and wife attorneys who put him in prison— while Lily Collias plays their daughter, who has been renamed Natalie.
The first two episodes of the 10-episode season will begin streaming on Apple TV on Friday. Cape Fear so far has earned an 80% “fresh” critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer based on 25 reviews.
RT’s Critics Consensus, Audience Summary and Popcornmeter score for Cape Fear are still pending.
What Are Individual Critics Saying About ‘Cape Fear’?
Aramide Tinubu of Variety is among the top critics on RT who give Cape Fear a “fresh” score, writing her review summary that “the latest adaptation, an Apple TV series created by Nick Antosca, is perhaps the most unnerving and intense retelling yet.”
Randy Myers of the San Jose Mercury News is just as impressed with Cape Fear, calling the series in his “fresh” RT review “a breathless experience, a shattering new impression that repurposes what came before and strives to do something similar yet different.”
Ben Travers of IndieWire also gives Cape Fear a “fresh” score on RT. The critic gives most of the praise to Javier Bardem in his RT review summary, writing, “Cape Fear depends far more on Max Cady than any of the Bowdens, and Bardem’s approach to the character isn’t just the best since Mitchum first brought him to life; it’s the best for this version of the story.”
Richard Roeper of RogerEbert.com also gives the series a “fresh” score, although he has some reservations. Roeper writes in his RT review summary, “It’s a lurid, explicitly violent, well-acted, and preposterously plotted fever dream that had me rolling my eyes at certain twists and turns, even as I found myself eager to gobble up the next episode.”
Moira MacDonald of the Seattle Times is among the top critics on who gives Cape Fear a “rotten” score. MacDonald likens Cape Fear in her RT summary to “a once-firm piece of gum that’s now an endless strand; only the vague outline of the plot, and some gloriously old-school renditions of the ominous Bernard Herrmann and Elmer Bernstein theme music from the two films, remain.”
Nick Schager of The Daily Beast isn’t a fan of the new Cape Fear adaptation either, calling it in his “rotten” RT review summary “an A-list series that, in terms of originality, vitality, and rationality, proves an F-grade affair.”
The first two episodes of Cape Fear premiere on Apple TV on Friday.