"The Cable Guy" has been regarded as having a darker tone than most of Carrey's previous work. Audiences had mixed reactions to this change of tone for Carrey and film critics gave mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 54%, based on 78 reviews, with an average rating of 5.76/10. The site's critical consensus states, ""The Cable Guy"s dark flashes of thought-provoking, subversive wit are often—but not always—enough to counter its frustratingly uneven storytelling approach." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on reviews from 28 critics. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "C+" on scale of A to F.