Metacritic reviews

Surprisingly, the film goes much further than expected. Streaming services are loaded with documentaries about scammy internet-era companies, but “MoviePass, MovieCrash” finds the barely told story in all the juicy facts.

MoviePass, MovieCrash is an abundantly entertaining, easily digestible rendering of a ‘too crazy to be true’ story that looks at the turbulent, short life of the company from the perspective of its creators, its destroyers, and the rank-and-file workers who could do nothing but watch it all go down in flames.

By re-contextualizing MoviePass as the story of Black innovation thwarted by reckless privilege, it makes MoviePass’ swift downturn delicious and even comedic for the right reasons instead of the wrong ones.

Directed with just the right amount of stylistic flair (including terrific and helpful graphics) by the talented Muta’Ali, “MoviePass, MovieCrash” is a worthy companion to documentaries such as “Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga,” “WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn,“ and the Fyre Festival documentaries.

By the time the mainstream world came to embrace MoviePass, we all already knew it was doomed, and I wish the documentary had illustrated what the alternative might have been.

Among the ironic lessons of MoviePass, MovieCrash is that the people who used the service the most helped ruin it, though it wasn’t really their fault—it was a great deal. One that seemed too good to be true. And was.

The doc struggles to land on whether MoviePass was a predetermined failure or something that was failed, and the lack of participation in many of the key players for the latter hurts its ability to probe deeper.

In trying to capture the current state of the exhibition industry, there’s simply too much left unsaid, either for legal reasons or editorial choices.