Post & Find Jobs Manage Your Account
Click here to login! Search:  
Browse Contacts | Power Search           
Movie Reviews

RECENT | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

SPEED RACER 2 stars
 by LEW IRWIN                     View Film Profile     
Reviews of Speed Racer are likely to compound the nervousness of Warner Bros. execs over the Wachowski Brothers' expensive animated/live-action movie. Cheap horror films are often treated with greater critical kindness. Consider Joe Morgenstern's critique in the Wall Street Journal: "This toxic admixture of computer-generated frenzy and live-action torpor succeeds in being, almost simultaneously, genuinely painful -- the esthetic equivalent of needles in eyeballs -- and weirdly benumbing, like eye candy laced with lidocaine," Morgenstern writes. A.O. Scott has a less corrosive review, but it's nearly as damning: "The childhood experience the Wachowskis evoke is not the easy delight of lolling in the den watching one cartoon after another, but rather the squirming tedium of sitting in the back seat on an endless family car trip, your cheek taking on the texture of the vinyl seat as some grown-up lectures you on the beauty of the passing scenery," he says. Or take Kyle Smith's comparison in the New York Post: "This adventurously awful film is awful in many ways at once," Smith observes. "It is, like a Ferraro poking across East 42nd Street at rush hour, fast yet slow. It is futuristic ally retry. Its attention span is measurable in microseconds, yet it runs more than two hours. And it spent a trillion dollars imitating the look of a 10-cent cartoon from the primitive '60s -- artistically, the Cro-Magnon era. I was initially awed by its splendors. Bu Âșt when I'd had my fill, there was still an hour-45 left." Nevertheless, a few critics are impressed with the artistic achievement of the animators. "On the levels of technical craftsmanship and pure eye-candy, Speed Racer is some kind of triumph of the will," Try Burr comments in the Boston Globe. And Refer Guzmán in Newsday calls it "one of the most visually audacious films to come along in years."


WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS 1.5 stars
 by LEW IRWIN                     View Film Profile     
What Happens in Vegas, starring Ashton Butcher and Cameron Diaz, shoots snake-eyes with critics. Some of their reactions: Rock Grown in the Toronto Globe and Mail: "What Happens in Vegas should damn well have stayed in Vegas." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal: "What Happens in Vegas should have stayed in development -- forever." Manohla Dargis in the New York Times: "One of those junky time-wasters that routinely pop up in movie theaters." Claudia Puig in USA Today: "A mediocre movie that takes no chances." Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun: "A screwed-up screwball farce." And while Speed Racer at least got props from a few critics for artistic merit, Michael Phillips concludes tersely about Vegas in the Chicago Tribune: "The movie looks like crud."


MADE OF HONOR
 by LEW IRWIN                     View Film Profile     
The romantic comedy Made of Honor will be the only new film opening wide against Iron Man (which opened Thursday night) this weekend. Some critics seem to agree that it represents effective counter-programming. The New York Times's Stephen Holden remarks that the movie "adds tart satirical flavors to a cotton-candy formula without sabotaging the sugar rush." Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel comments that "fortunately ... [the movie] earns enough goodwill in a clever and sexy opening act to carry it through" to the end. Most other critics, however, suggest that it's merely another rendering of the 1997 film My Best Friend's Wedding, with a gender reversal, and one even compares it, unfavorably, with the classic The Philadelphia Story. He is the Toronto Star's Philip Marchand, who remarks that the audience is not likely to show much interest in the principal character, played by Patrick Dempsey. "Somewhere in the shades of Hollywood, the ghost of Cary Grant is shaking his head," Marchand writes. Kyle Smith in the New York Post calls Dempsey's character "a preening yet uptight jerk," and says that the outcome of the movie -- which character will wind up with whom? -- is never in doubt. "Still," he writes, "there was a certain amount of suspense in the air at the screening of Made of Honor: Would Tom and Hannah realize they're perfect for each other at the altar, or would I burn down the theater first?" Desson Thomson frames his review as if he were writing about a freeway accident. "Actors Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan are trapped in the wreckage of a bad romantic comedy. Observers suggest the vehicle in which they were riding was poorly engineered and believed to be constructed of cheap, recycled material. The severity of their injuries is unclear at this time."


SON OF RAMBOW 3.5 stars
 by LEW IRWIN                     View Film Profile     
Sylvester Stallone has given his endorsement to the British film Son of Rambow [sic], which opens today (Friday) in five theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The film concerns two boys in the 1980s who discover a video of First Blood and go about making their own version of the movie. Stallone told today's Los Angeles Times that when he first heard about Rambow he "assumed it was going to be a very broad and stylized joke-a-minute comedy at Rambo's expense." But he thought otherwise after he saw it. "The fact that it was so heartwarming is the result of brilliant filmmaking by its creators," Stallone said. Nevertheless writer-director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith disclosed that it took an extraordinary amount of time to obtain the necessary permission to use clips from the Stallone movie in theirs. They said they used the delay as an opportunity to preview the film at film festivals, where "it wasn't being judged on whether it was doing anything at the box office, it was purely whether we made a film that worked. I can't tell you how satisfying that was," Jennings said. Initial reviews have been positive if not enthusiastic. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times calls it "a likable, lightly sticky valentine to childhood." To Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times, it's "a dewy-eyed, plaintive, unafraid-to-be-adorable exercise in stylish nostalgia." And Claudia Puig in USA Today describes it as "surprisingly charming."P>


IRON MAN 4 stars
 by LEW IRWIN                     View Film Profile     
Robert Downey Jr., an unlikely choice to play a superhero, is receiving much praise for his performance in the title role of Iron Man, which is opening at 8:00 p.m. in many theaters throughout the country tonight (Thursday). "This supremely gifted actor will please several generations of filmgoers," writes Bill Zwecker in the Chicago Sun-Times who calls the movie itself "simply great escapism." Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times notes that the part seems to be "nicely tailored to Downey's talents and is a great deal of fun as a result." Says Lou Lumenick in the New York Post: "First and foremost, this is Downey's show." And some show it is, most critics agree. "Make no mistake," writes Peter Howell in the Toronto Star, "this is the birth of a new franchise. The only thing wrong with Iron Man -- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- is that it's too short, even at 126 minutes. It ends just as the action is really picking up. When was the last time a summer blockbuster left you longing for more?" And Michael Sragow concludes in the Baltimore Sun: "So far this spring, as far as live-action would-be blockbusters go, all that glitters is iron."


BABY MAMA 3 stars
 by LEW IRWIN                     View Film Profile     
Former Saturday Night Live players Tina Fey and Amy Poehler go to the movies with Baby Mama in which Fey's character hires Poehler's as a surrogate mother while she tends to her career. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times suggests that the movie is "sitcom functional," but that "it pulls you in with a provocative and, at least in current American movies, unusual mix of female intelligence, awkwardness and chilled-to-the-bone mean." Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times reacts similarly. The movie, she writes, "hardly allows itself any sharp moments at all -- it's much too sweet-natured to be cruel, and much too cheerful to be angry. It probably could have pushed a few more buttons, but Baby Mama aims to please and succeeds." John Anderson in Newsday is not so generous, writing that the movie seems "mild to the point of pabulum, taking a pretty fertile topic -- surrogate motherhood -- and making it inoffensive to anyone." He then quickly adds, "This is not an endorsement." And Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune thinks the entire project may have been calculated by media planners. He writes: "Every moment of this project feels beat-driven, focus-grouped and designed to package Fey as a viable movie star with great pins (as one character takes pains to note) to go with the breasts (ditto). This isn't writing, it's advertising."


Other Current Reviews

HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY   3 stars
The stoner characters Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn), having left White Castle, now escape from Guantánamo Bay, but many critics suggest that whatever political punch the movie (more)

DECEPTION   0.5 stars
Deception, starring Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, Michelle Williams and Charlotte Rampling may be described by its promoters as a sex thriller, but critics are describing it as just (more)

FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, THE   3 stars
The traditional violence of martial-arts films has been toned way down for the family film The Forbidden Kingdom, starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Critics are expressing mixed reaction (more)

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL   4 stars
Critics may not be giving Forgetting Sarah Marshall a lot of props for craftsmanship, but they are for daring -- daring to show the star's penis in particular. As (more)

88 MINUTES   1 star
Al Pacino is back in a Jon Avnet thriller, 88 Minutes, and a few critics agree that the film will satisfy expectations, especially if those expectations aren't very high (more)

PROM NIGHT   1 star
Prom Night, which did not have a special screening for critics, drew the expected howls from them over the weekend when they viewed it with paying customers. In the (more)

STREET KINGS   2 stars
Street Kings, based on a novel by James Ellroy -- Ellroy also receives credit for contributing to the screenplay -- is not the kind of film that will win (more)

SMART PEOPLE   2.5 stars
Smart People, about, well, smart people in academia, is opening with quite a mixture of critical reaction. It passes the IQ test with flying colors. And intelligence plus genuine (more)

Young@Heart   4 1/2 stars
A group of senior citizens performing rock-and-roll numbers in a theatrical documentary are receiving much critical praise from film critics as the film opens in limited release today (Wednesday). (more)

LEATHERHEADS   2.5 stars
Leatherheads, studio publicists have said, is intended to be a kind of throwback to those movies of the '40s and '50s called "screwball comedies." And Rafer Guzmán in Newsday (more)

NIM'S ISLAND   2 stars
Many of the critics reviewing Nim's Island realize that most of the folks reading their reviews will never see the movie unless they're the parents of small children, so (more)

STOP-LOSS   3 stars
Critics are suggesting that Stop-Loss, from Boys Don't Cry director Kimberly Peirce, is unlike any antiwar film ever produced, certainly unlike any about the Iraq or Afghan wars. A.O. (more)

21   2 stars
21 craps out with many of the nation's critics. "A feature-length bore about some smarty-pants who take Vegas for a ride" is how Manohla Dargis describes it in the (more)

Meet The Browns   2 stars
Like previous Tyler Perry movies, Meet the Browns was not screened for critics -- at least not in the U.S. Philip Marchand of the Toronto Star either attended a (more)

DRILLBIT TAYLOR   1.5 stars
New York Times critic A.O. Scott says that he counts himself among the admirers of Judd Apatow's comedies but considers Drillbit Taylor the way he would a fashion (more)

HORTON HEARS A WHO!   4 stars
Movies based on the Dr. Seuss children's books have rarely received decent reviews. Horton Hears a Who! is definitely an exception. Ty Burr in the Boston Globe calls it (more)

NEVER BACK DOWN   2 stars
Reviews for Never Back Down are mostly as bad as they get. Kyle Smith in the New York Post describes it as "a formula flick that should have tapped (more)



Home | Privacy Policy | Legal Notice | Affiliates | Contact Us | Help | Your Account | Wireless
1997-2008 ShowBIZ Data Inc. - All rights reserved.