Metacritic reviews

Cautionary tales aren't new. What sets Kids apart as daringly original, touching and alive is its authenticity.

Disturbing because it is so believable, Kids goes well beyond any previous American film in frankly describing the lives of at least a certain group of modern teenagers.

Since Fitzpatrick is an actor (and "no ladies' man," he told Clark), this is a performance and, as such, one of the most effective I've seen. It's amazing how, watching the film, you dislike Telly so much you want to deny Fitzpatrick's accomplishment in creating him.

Mr. Clark's vision of these characters is so bleak and legitimately shocking that it makes almost any other portrait of American adolescence look like the picture of Dorian Gray...Kids is far too serious to be tarred as exploitation, and its extremism is both artful and devastatingly effective. Think of this not as cinema verite but as a new strain of post-apocalyptic science fiction, using hyperbole to magnify a kernel of terrible, undeniable truth.

Without a doubt, hard hitting and thoguhtful, but Clarke's style here (as it would continue to do) hints at something altogether more disturbing.

If Kids is simultaneously engrossing and detached, observant and just plain showy, that may be because the film is so caught up in trying to be a statement that it never develops its characters beyond their rowdy, bellicose facades.

Kids is more tedious than titillating, one of those cinematic irritations more interesting to read about than to see.

The tone is relentlessly sordid, the view of these pubescent hedonists so hermetic, that the film-makers' 'honesty' seems exploitative and sensational. The film may not say anything new, but the way it says it does, in the end, make it some sort of landmark. Depressing.

Ostensibly about the banality of youthful evil, Kids is simply about its own banality. At best, it's a misplaced aesthetic experiment. At worst, it's glossy exploitation—with enough controversy to launch a thousand trite radio and television talk shows.

Except for pedophiles, it's hard to imagine who'll be drawn to this irresponsible Little Bo Peep show.