Lucifer star's rom-com debuts with soft Rotten Tomatoes rating
Netflix's new rom-com Players starring Gina Rodriguez and Lucifer's Tom Ellis has opened to mixed reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Currently sitting at a meagre 43% critic score on the review aggregator website, the film follows Rodriguez's Mack, a sportswriter living in New York who resorts to "plays" to collect a series of hook-ups with her best friend Adam (Damon Wayans Jr).
As the title suggests, there's one rule cardinal to these players' game: You can't build a relationship from a play.
However, things change when Mack meets war correspondent Nick (Ellis) and enlists the help of her pals to make him stay for the long haul.
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Out of the reviews available at the time of writing, some praise Rodriguez's performance and the rom-com's self-awareness, while others slammed the film's clichés.
Bearing in mind the score may change once more reviews come in, let's take a look at what critics made of Players.
RogerEbert.com
"The tropes are so front and centre that real life barely has any room to breathe."
The Guardian
"A middling movie elevated to memorable by the breezy charm of Gina Rodriguez."
The New York Times
"Players is an old-fashioned romantic comedy, which means you know the end from the start. That's not a bug; it's a feature, a well-deployed one in this case."
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Variety
"Director Trish Sie's middling and at times mawkish film not only makes us hate the game, but also its players."
Blu-ray.com
"It's too crude and hostile to conjure warmth, perhaps more valuable as a study of sociopathy in the millennial dating age range."
Digital Mafia Talkies
"Players is proof that a rom-com can have personality, dynamic filmmaking, a likeable cast, and a message that can resonate with people regardless of their relationship status."
Mark Reviews Movies
"For obvious reasons from this setup, neither the romance nor the comedy is effective or, for that matter, feasible."
Players is available to stream on Netflix.
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