THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON
by Lew Irwin
View Film Profile
|
 Critics all seem to agree that The Twilight Saga: New Moon delivers what it is supposed to deliver -- in the words of Elizabeth Weitzman, in the New York Daily News, "swooning romance, PG-13 thrills, and enough sharp cheekbones and shirtless boys to carry any adolescent over to the next installment." Few of them even attempt to appraise the movie for its artistic quality, the apparent thinking being, "Why bother?" Hence, Kyle Smith's hilarious review in the New York Post, which begins: "Twilight, which was about a girl and a vampire who don't hook up, is totally different from The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which is about a girl, a vampire and a werewolf who don't hook up. And it's not at all like the next sequel, in which a girl, a vampire, a werewolf and a mummy fail to find romance, nor the one after that, in which the girl gets unfriended by all of the above plus the Invisible Man and King Kong -- yet finds her heart aflutter when she befriends the Bride of Frankenstein." And Mick LaSalle solves the critic's dilemma in assessing the movie by observing that it's really not a movie at all. "This is a pop culture phenomenon," he writes, "some weird early 21st century aberration, our equivalent of the hula hoop or dancing the Charleston on a biplane's wing. In the future, people will watch this second installment of "The Twilight Saga" and think, 'What was that?'" Clearly, there's not a teenage heart beating among any of the critics. Roger Ebert comments in the Chicago Sun-Times that the charisma of stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart "is by Madame Tussaud." (He has apparently not witnessed any of the teenage hysteria that accompanies their every move.) On the other hand, Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel concludes that the sequel is "more polished" than the original, "and we get the sense that even though a guy directed it [unlike Twilight], he wants the mostly-female fanbase to revel in the overheated romance, the blood-enforced chastity and the sacrifices this toothy Romeo-and-Juliet tale serves up." And Peter Howell in the Toronto Star dishes out quite a bit of praise to the filmmakers: "They well serve an evolving and involving love saga that gives us a lot more to chew on than the typical teen romance," he writes. |
|
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
by Lew Irwin
View Film Profile
|
 The stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr. Fox, with a voice cast that includes George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe and Jason Schwartzman, received enthusiastic reviews from national critics and those in Los Angeles and New York, where the film opened over the weekend. Directed by Wes Anderson from the Roald Dahl children's book, the film looks rather primitive compared with today's state-of-the-art 3D computer-animated features, the critics agree, while also observing that may be part of its charm. Indeed, Lou Lumenick in the New York Post described it as "a retro marvel." None of the critics appeared to be put off at all by the unrefined imagery. "Once you adjust to its stop-and-start rhythms and its scruffy looks, you can appreciate its wit, its beauty and the sly gravity of its emotional undercurrents," wrote A.O. Scott in the New York Times. Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News escalated the praise, calling the movie, "a visual treasure that successfully blends deadpan quirkiness with a wry realism rarely seen in any film, let alone one for children." In USA Today Claudia Puig somewhat reticently concluded that Anderson renders Dahl's story as "a sometimes witty, if odd, cartoon for all ages." Actually, several critics suggested it may not be a movie for children at all. Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times called it "ultrasophisticated," adding that it "does more than occupy its own particular space between the worlds of childhood and adults. It provides a pleasantly cerebral experience, exhilarating and fizzy, that goes to your head like too much Champagne." |
|
PIRATE RADIO
by Lew Irwin
View Film Profile
|
 Like the little off-shore pirate radio stations playing rock 'n' roll that dared to compete against the massive radio domination of the staid BBC in the 1960s, Pirate Radio debuts against the incalculable might of the $260-million apocalyptic flick 2012 this week. The critics, for the most part, love it. "It skips by like a much-loved old LP," writes Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel. "The film makes for easy viewing and easier listening," says Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, one of several critics who praise the choice of '60s music featured in the movie (and Claudia Puig in USA Today recommends that audiences "stick around through the end credit sequence, which features an array of album covers.") Kyle Smith in the New York Post notes that writer/director Richard Curtis, who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, "has dropped another bright joy-bomb that explodes in every direction with rock classics used in surprisingly direct and literal ways." On the other hand, Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer accuses Curtis of taking a potentially "great story" about the pirate stations and turning it "into an aggressively irritating floating frat-party romp." And Peter Howell concludes in the Toronto Star: "This film doesn't know whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama. By the time it finally reaches its Titanic-style conclusion, you probably won't care." |
|
2012
by Lew Irwin
View Film Profile
|
 2012 is not a disaster. That's one thing critics, for the most part, agree on -- to various degrees. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times even goes so far as to call it "the mother of all disaster movies" -- largely because the movie doesn't merely show a few recognizable landmarks being destroyed -- but the entire Earth. "You think you've seen end-of-the-world movies?" he remarks. "This one ends the world, stomps on it, grinds it up and spits it out." His conclusion: "The movie gives you your money's worth. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it one of the year's best? No. Does Emmerich hammer it together with his elbows from parts obtained from the Used Disaster Movie Store? Yes. But is it about as good as a movie in this genre can be? Yes." Many reviewers note that it's a useless enterprise to try to critique the screenplay -- which is based on the premise that ancient Mayans forecast the end of the world on December 21, 2012 -- the final day of their calendar. (They apparently did not forecast the end of their own civilization, which occurred hundreds of years earlier.) That hasn't stopped others from zeroing in on the plot. Like Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, who comments, "Despite the frenetic action scenes, the movie sags, done in by multiple story lines that undercut one another," she writes. Claudia Puig in USA Today sums up: "The movie is an undeniable visual spectacle, but just as unequivocally a cheesy, ridiculous story." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post won't even grant that it's cheesy, calling it instead "pure Velveeta," -- but, ah, the spectacle. "About the only thing that's missing from 2012 (except sanity)," he writes, "is 3-D, IMAX and Sensurround. For those, I would gladly pay $20 a ticket." Noting that the movie reportedly cost $260 million to make, Elizabeth Weitzman writes in the New York Daily News: "All that money can buy some jaw-dropping special effects, but not, it seems, a script worth a dime." Still, Tom Maurstad in the Dallas Morning News thinks it was probably a good idea to present a threadbare story. "If the viewer were ever invited to think or feel about what's happening on-screen, the movie's wow-whoa-ain't-it-cool momentum would collapse in a heap of horrific preposterousness," he writes. And Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle gives it a rave review, although admitting, "It's hard to do justice to his ridiculous, wonderful movie." LaSalle makes the point: "People talk about 'formula' almost always as a pejorative, but formulas get to be formulas because they work, and there's something to be said for a formula picture done almost to perfection." On the other hand, Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal hasn't a kind word to say about either the story or the effects, tagging the movie, "destructo drek." |
|
BOX, THE
by Lew Irwin
View Film Profile
|
 How much you're likely to enjoy The Box, which opened at the box office in sixth place with $7.9 million over the weekend, may well depend on how well you are able to cope with preposterous story lines. Indeed, that word -- "preposterous" -- cropped up in many, if not most, of the reviews of the film. In her mixed review, Manohla Dargis in the New York Times regarded The Box as "a serious work that insists on its own seriousness even when it edges toward the preposterous." However, Claudia Puig in USA Today wrote that "director Richard Kelly has fashioned a preposterous tale that lacks the wit that made his Donnie Darko a cult classic." Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News scoffed at the movie's "preposterous special effects." But Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, while acknowledging that "preposterous" is "one of my favorite adjectives," nevertheless went on to write, "If you make a preposterous movie that isn't boring, I count that as some kind of a triumph." He concluded: "This movie kept me involved and intrigued, and for that I'm grateful. I'm beginning to wonder whether, in some situations, absurdity might not be a strength." But "boring" was indeed the operative term for several critics. "Have you ever actually tried watching paint dry? A sloth walk? Grass grow?" Asked Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. "You can have all the 'thrills' with none of the chills courtesy of The Box." |
|
4TH KIND, THE
by Lew Irwin
View Film Profile
|
 The film not to have a close encounter with this weekend, most critics warn, is The Fourth Kind, which is set in Nome, Alaska but which was actually shot in Bulgaria -- documentary style, like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity -- about a supposed invasion of aliens who terrorize the good citizens of Nome. Like its predecessors, says Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel, "The Fourth Kind is a fraud, but that wouldn't matter if it were scarier and better acted." Writes Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News: "Badly acted by everyone (including the director, Olatunde Osunsanmi, who appears onscreen), this insipid jumble's idea of fright is incessant screaming." |
|
|
 |  |  |
 |
|
 |
Other Current Reviews
|
| PRECIOUS
|
Precious
is
opening
in
fewer
than
100
theaters
this
weekend,
but
most
critics
agree
that
it's
the
film
to
see.
The
movie's
marketers
are
almost
certain
to
plaster
the
(more)
|
| MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, THE
|
We
get
more
paranormal
activity
this
week
in
The
Men
Who
Stare
at
Goats,
starring
George
Clooney,
Jeff
Bridges
and
Stephen
Lang
about
a
reporter's
efforts
to
reveal
the
(more)
|
| CHRISTMAS CAROL, A
|
There's
little
harmony
among
critics
assessing
the
latest
cinematic
version
of
Dickens'
A
Christmas
Carol.
(Actually,
this
one
is
called
Disney's
A
Christmas
Carol.)
Roger
Ebert
in
the
Chicago
(more)
|
SAW VI
|
If
Saw
VI
didn't
meet
expectations
at
the
box
office,
the
reason
may
have
been
that
word
got
around
that
the
franchise
wasn't
what
it
used
to
be.
That
(more)
|
| THIS IS IT!
|
Clearly
critics
who
sat
in
on
advance
screenings
of
the
Michael
Jackson
concert
documentary
This
Is
It!
were
expecting
to
see
a
shadow
of
the
former
vibrant
entertainer
and
(more)
|
| ASTRO BOY
|
Most
critics
have
noted
that
Astro
Boy
contains
little
plot
but
plenty
of
action.
Roger
Ebert,
who
bestows
three
stars
on
the
animated
film,
asks
in
his
Chicago
Sun-Time
(more)
|
| CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT
|
Cirque
du
Freak:
The
Vampire's
Assistant
is
receiving
a
lot
of
biting
criticism
from
reviewers.
Roger
Ebert
in
the
Chicago
Sun-Times
calls
it
"a
mess."
Kyle
Smith
in
the
(more)
|
| AMELIA
|
The
famed
aviatrix
Amelia
Earhart
may
have
been
regarded
as
a
fascinating
figure
and
overdue
for
a
movie
about
her,
but
most
critics
have
not
found
this
movie
very
(more)
|
| WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
|
Maurice
Sendak's
Where
the
Wild
Things
Are
has
been
expanded
from
a
nine-sentence,
37-page-long
children's
book
filled
mostly
with
his
drawings
("the
easiest
prereview
homework
ever,"
Lisa
Kennedy
of
(more)
|
| COUPLES RETREAT
|
It's
probably
a
good
thing
that
Couples
Retreat
has
the
weekend
to
itself
as
the
only
movie
opening
wide.
Critics
are
saying
that
the
only
thing
funny
about
this
(more)
|
| PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
|
For
a
film
that
cost
only
$15,000
to
make
Paranormal
Activity
is
piling
up
reviews
that
are
generally
as
enthusiastic
as
box-office
proceeds
have
been
flourishing.
Moving
into
a
(more)
|
| INVENTION OF LYING, THE
|
What
would
a
world
be
like
if
lying
did
not
exist?
That
is
the
question
answered
in
The
Invention
of
Lying,
starring
Rickey
Gervais.
For
example,
as
Roger
Ebert
(more)
|
| WHIP IT
|
Whip
It
set
in
the
world
of
roller
derby
with
Drew
Barrymore
(who
also
produces
directs)
and
Ellen
Page
skating
up
a
storm,
follows
the
outlines
of
countless
other
(more)
|
| ZOMBIELAND
|
Clearly
Zombieland
is
not
the
kind
of
movie
Roger
Ebert
can
sink
his
teeth
into.
"Vampires
make
a
certain
amount
of
sense
to
me,
but
zombies
not
so
much.
(more)
|
| FAME
|
If
audiences
react
the
way
critics
have
to
the
remake
of
the
1980
version
of
Fame,
Leo
the
Lion
will
have
to
go
back
into
hibernation
at
MGM.
The
(more)
|
| SURROGATES
|
Critics
appear
to
wish
that
the
plot
of
Surrogates
were
as
intriguing
as
its
premise:
it's
about
a
time
in
which
human
beings
can
remain
at
home,
where
they
(more)
|
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY
|
With
Capitalism:
A
Love
Story,
Michael
Moore
is
receiving
--as
usual
--
props
for
his
skill
as
a
propagandist
filmmaker
and
--
also
as
usual
--
he
is
being
(more)
|
|
| |
 |  |  |  | |
|
