PUBLIC ENEMIES
by Lew Irwin
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|
 With Public Enemies, Michael Mann has delivered a drama about a gangster whose name does not end in a vowel that has drawn the kind of praise from critics that they had previously reserved for The Sopranos. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times describes the movie about the last days of John Dillinger as "a grave and beautiful work of art." She adds that it "looks and plays like no other American gangster film I can think of." That is the theme of several other reviews. "You might not think it was possible to make a film about the most famous outlaw of the 1930s without cliches and 'star chemistry' and a film class screenplay structure, but Mann does it," writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. "The beauty and the skill of the filmmaking keep you tightly in its grasp," says Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Claudia Puig in USA Today comments, "An action film that feels like an epic, Public Enemies is an exciting and stylish slice of Americana." "The film is gripping and efficient," says Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel, noting that Depp as gangster John Dillinger and Christian Bale as G-man Melvin Purvis "make compelling enemies with charisma to burn." And comparing it to its rivals at the box office, Tom Maurstad in the Dallas Morning News remarks that the movie "appears as an oasis of adult entertainment." On the other hand, Lou Lumenick in the New York Post calls the film, "disappointing, curiously uninvolving." Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News faults it for being "underconceived." And Dan Zak in the Washington Post faults Johnny Depp, who "dials down his weirdness to play gangster John Dillinger and, ironically, this choice sinks the movie." |
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ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS
by Lew Irwin
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 The critics are running hot and cold over Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times judges it to be "the best of the three films" in the franchise. Likewise Lou Lumenick in the New York Post remarks that "the third installment ... shows no sign of fatigue." And Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News says that it's "cute enough to engage kids and just smart enough to keep the chaperones entertained." But Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer comments, "One might call this feeble attempt to wring every last nickel from a moderately enjoyable franchise The Crass Menagerie." And Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune concludes: "Not bad, not good, Ice Age 3 may be OK enough to do what it was engineered to do, i.e., baby-sit your kid for a while and rake in the dough." |
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TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
by Lew Irwin
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|
 Reviews rarely come more caustic than the early ones for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen -- even from critics who had had nice things to say about the original. For example, Claudia Puig in USA Today comments: "Bigger, louder, longer and more metallic is definitely not better. Where the first movie was a happy surprise, a comedy with engaging characters and spectacular action-filled escapades, the sequel lacks wit, charm, subtlety, restraint, humanity and clever dialogue. It has loads of spectacle but no soul." Saying that he wished he "could explain the plot," Lou Lumenick in the New York Post remarks that the movie is "squarely aimed at 8-year-old boys and men who never quite matured past that stage." Peter Howell in the Toronto Star says it's a movie filled with "booms and boobage" that is so noisy, it's "akin to lying on the tarmac at Pearson International while a revving Airbus A 380 rolls over you." Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel asks: "Is it the worst movie of the summer? Possibly. Will everybody see it? Probably." But Rafer Guzmán in Newsday concludes: "The battles between giant robots are astoundingly detailed, and cleverly set in organic places like forests and deserts that add to the realism. Like its predecessor, this Transformers is a terrific guilty pleasure." A second round of reviews for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen turned up in major newspapers today (Wednesday), and, by and large, they were no less negative than the ones that turned up a day before. As if sensing that his review will largely go unread by the people seeing the movie, Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune mentions a scene in which an aged Autobot utters the line "I'm too old for this crap." Comments Phillips: "No matter, pal. You're not in the target demographic." In the Boston Globe, Ty Burr calls the sequel "2 1/2 hours of tumescence disguised as a motion picture." John Anderson in the Washington Post brands it "simply despicable." Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times concludes that the movie "is in-your-face, ear-splitting and unrelenting. It's easy to walk away feeling like you've spent 2 1/2 hours in the mad, wild hydraulic embrace of a car compactor." Several critics do applaud the astounding effects from San Francisco-based ILM. "But without dynamic contrasts," writes Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe &, Mail, "even the destruction of internationally famous landmarks begins to feel like staring at wallpaper after a couple of hours." But Manohla Dargis's review in the New York Times seems surprisingly complimentary to director Michael Bay. "Despite the tediousness of his stories and inanity of his visual ideas, he always manages to keep you laughing and shaking your head in disbelief at the outlandishness of his cinematic spectacles," she writes. |
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WHATEVER WORKS
by Lew Irwin
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|
 For the past two or three decades, reviews of Woody Allen movies -- he continues to turn out about one every year -- have tended to fall into two categories: the ones that say that Allen has lost his comedic touch and the ones that say he is back in winning form. His last film, Vicky Christina Barcelona, fell into the latter category; his newest film, Whatever Works, which opens today (Friday) in New York and Los Angeles, falls into the former. "Whatever Works is one of the least engaging movies ever by the prolific Allen, a real disappointment after the charms of Vicky Christina Barcelona," writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. "It's as distasteful as Barcelona is appealing." Indeed, Allen had been piling up considerable acclaim from critics for the movies he has been making abroad for the past several years. "But Mr. Allen's imagination has returned to Manhattan after that invigorating European sojourn afflicted by an extreme case of jet lag," writes A.O. Scott in the New York Times. Echoing Scott's remarks is Lou Lumenick in the New York Post, who writes: "The Woodman's return to New York after a four-year European sojourn finds him working very familiar territory much less fruitfully than in the past." Part of the problem, say many critics is the performance of Larry David in the starring role as an old misanthropic intellectual. Rafer Guzmán in Newsday remarks that David's acting style "wipes away the vulnerability and sweetness that Allen wrote into the character." And Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times notes that Allen had originally written the script with the late Zero Mostel in mind to play the lead. However, he remarks, "It's not Mostel you will be imagining in this role when you see the film, but Allen himself. There's no doubt that the writer-director's presence would make the script's torrent of dyspeptic lines more palatable than David can." And in the Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern sums up the movie in three words: "Whatever Works doesn't." |
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YEAR ONE
by Lew Irwin
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|
 Year One , starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, takes place during the time of the cavemen, but several critics suggest the title might well refer to the high-school level of comedy it displays. Claudia Puig in USA Today warns: "No one older than 16 should bother seeing it." Kyle Smith in the New York Post begins his review by writing that the movie "is nowhere near as funny as the ancient-civilization movies I saw in high school: Life of Brian, History of the World Part I, Caligula. Its script isn't worth the papyrus it's inscribed on." Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News predicts that "the one person who'll be happy after walking out may be Will Ferrell, since Land of the Lost is no longer the only turkey around." |
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PROPOSAL, THE
by Lew Irwin
View Film Profile
|
 It may be a good thing for The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, that movie audiences are composed -- overwhelmingly -- of the so-called "dating crowd." Older moviegoers are likely to have seen the plot of the movie innumerable times in the past. Besides, the movie itself is a so-called date flick. Lou Lumenick in the New York Post calls it "shamelessly derivative, contrived and predictable." Yet he adds that it is "nonetheless a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy." Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer similarly concludes: "The setup is formula, but Bullock and Reynolds supply surprising fizz and kick." Likewise Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail comments that "the two stars invigorate this breezy trifle of a romantic comedy." And Tom Maurstad in the Dallas Morning News describes it as "the moviegoing equivalent of comfort food: You know exactly what you're getting and it's easy, no-fuss fun." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun Times says that as he watched the plot of the movie begin to unfold he sat "cringing, knowing with uncanny certainty where the story was going." But by the end, he writes, he was won over. "The Proposal recycles a plot that was already old when Tracy and Hepburn were trying it out," he concludes. "You see it coming from a great distance away. As it draws closer, you don't duck out of the way, because it is so cheerfully done, you don't mind being hit by it." In her review in the New York Times, Manohla Dargis begins to describe the plot, then interrupts herself: "You know the rest because you've seen (and read) it many times before," she writes. Dargis is not so congenial as Ebert in summing up the movie, particularly when it comes to Bullock: "She's just another female movie star in need of a vehicle that won't throw her overboard for sexist giggles and laughs." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal is somewhat kinder to Bullock but remarks that while he watched the movie, he couldn't help thinking, "Why is she demeaning herself with such shoddy goods? She's a talented woman with a faithful following. She has made formula films of varying quality before, and her fans may well swallow this one, but it's a formula for disappointment laced with dismay." Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News also expresses something approaching sympathy for Bullock's costar, Reynolds, who has spent years "choosing scripts painfully beneath him," she writes. "So it would have been nice if these two had found something worthy of their combined talents. Instead, their mutual inclination towards synthetic Hollywood junk just drags them down together." And Rafer Guzmán in Newsday simply dismisses The Proposal as a movie that "goes everywhere you've already been." |
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Other Current Reviews
|
IMAGINE THAT
|
Poor
Eddie
Murphy.
Not
only
is
just
about
every
industry
observer
predicting
that
there
is
little
commercial
appeal
for
his
latest
movie,
Imagine
That,
but
several
critics
are
dismissing
(more)
|
| TAKING OF PELHAM 123, THE
|
The
Taking
of
Pelham
123
is
getting
fairly
decent
reviews
from
critics,
several
of
whom
remark
that
while
there
isn't
much
to
dislike
about
the
movie,
there's
also
nothing
(more)
|
MY LIFE IN RUINS
|
My
Life
in
Ruins
ended
up
pretty
much
in
ruins
over
the
weekend
after
it
was
clobbered
by
critics
on
Friday.
"I
didn't
hate
it
so
much
as
feel
sorry
(more)
|
| LAND OF THE LOST
|
Roger
Ebert
of
the
Chicago
Sun-Times
is
standing
up
for
Land
of
the
Lost.
"Amid
Widespread
disdain,"
he
writes,
"I
raise
my
voice
in
a
bleat
of
lonely,
if
(more)
|
| HANGOVER, THE
|
The
Chicago-Sun
Times's
Roger
Ebert
is
also
being
especially
kind
to
another
comedy
that
several
other
critics
are
lampooning.
"The
Hangover
is
a
funny
movie,"
he
writes,
"flat
out,
(more)
|
| DRAG ME TO HELL
|
Critics
rarely
bestow
much
praise
on
horror
movies,
and
indeed,
many
studios
are
loath
even
to
have
advance
press
screenings
for
them.
But
when
the
horror
movie
is
directed
(more)
|
DANCE FLICK
|
The
latest
comedy
from
the
Wayans
brothers
(well,
actually
mostly
younger
cousins,
too),
Dance
Flick,
has
received
mostly
mixed
reviews.
While
Carrie
Rickey
of
the
Philadelphia
Inquirer
calls
it
(more)
|
| IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS, THE
|
Terry
Gilliam
has
come
a
long
way
since
the
late
'60s,
when
he
admittedly
became
one
of
the
original
copyright
infringers
by
cutting
out
photos
and
pictures
from
magazines
(more)
|
| NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN
|
The
first
blockbusters
of
the
season
may
be
selling
a
lot
of
tickets,
but
with
the
arguable
exception
of
Star
Trek,
they
are
not
faring
well
with
critics.
Night
(more)
|
| TERMINATOR SALVATION
|
Critics
are
also
getting
out
early
reviews
of
the
movie,
and
most
of
them
suggest
that
Arnold
Schwarzenegger,
who
is
occupied
with
the
salvation
of
California,
would
likely
have
(more)
|
| INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
|
Critics
attending
the
Cannes
Film
Festival
are
mostly
expressing
disappointment
over
Quentin
Tarantino's
Inglourious
Basterds.
An
unsigned
review
on
the
Hollywood
Reporter
website
says,
"The
film
is
by
no
(more)
|
| MANAGEMENT
|
Virtually
all
the
reviews
of
Management
discuss
the
odd
casting
of
Jennifer
Aniston
opposite
Steve
Zahn.
And
there
is
widespread
disagreement
whether
it
works.
On
the
one
hand,
Elizabeth
(more)
|
| ANGELS & DEMONS
|
Clearly
there
are
far
more
demons
than
angels
among
the
ranks
of
critics
reviewing
Ron
Howard's
Angels
&
Demons,
the
sequel
to
his
The
Da
Vinci
Code
(which
most
(more)
|
UP
|
Film
critics
attending
the
Cannes
Film
Festival,
who
ordinarily
hone
their
scathes
on
the
opening-night
film
(in
2006
The
Da
Vinci
Code,
the
last
U.S.
film
to
open
the
(more)
|
| NEXT DAY AIR
|
Next
Day
Air
might
have
been
simply
a
funny
film
if
it
hadn't
been
so
bloody
violent,
several
reviewers
say.
"The
humor
is
there,
but
violence
brings
the
laughter
(more)
|
| STAR TREK
|
Early
reviews
of
the
latest
Star
Trek
movie
following
several
"world
premieres"
that
took
place
late
last
month
and
several
others
that
are
slated
for
tonight
(Wednesday).
Calling
the
(more)
|
|
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