Novocaine

...[Novocaine is] billed as a comedy but the joke goes missing in the first few minutes amid the volume of blood splashed around on the screen.

It's not as fun as it should be...

Novocaine feels like a brainstorming session for itself, which is all very well, until you realise that the only part being fully exercised is the lizard brain.

Quaid’s personable screen presence holds things together, even as his brutally beaten body starts to fall apart. But this gory action comedy has just one joke, and like poor, battered and bleeding Nathan it starts to run out of juice.

It’s an exquisite, though unintentional, symbol of the contemporary studio action movie... These films have become profoundly boring because their protagonists don’t appear to feel pain.

Beyond the creative stunt choreography, Novocaine doesn’t leave much of an impression full stop, and its saccharine ending relegates it to a category of films with intriguing premises that end up ultimately forgettable.

Apart from a sluggish conclusion that manages not to tarnish the overall film, Novocaine is an easy recommendation for a weekend watch.

[Jack] Quaid’s friendly aura is such a strange fit for the material, but that’s why this works so well.

Novocaine is genial enough in its extreme violence to endear audiences with the capacity to endure it. It goes from fun to sicko fun.

Novocaine is a fun, exciting, and boisterously bloody time at the movies that takes its novel concept, runs with it with cartoonish glee, and is led by a charming pairing in Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder. Recommended.