MOVIE REVIEWS: FLIGHT

While virtually every review of Flight, starring Denzel Washington, is positive, those reviews are mostly tempered by some hard-edged criticism. Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle spends the first 90 percent of his review praising the performances, Robert Zemeckis’s direction, and the taut script by John Gatins. “Now for the bad news,” he writes […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: END OF WATCH

Once again, a small, auteur work is garnering over-the-top praise from critics even while they are pummeling far more lavish productions.  With a handful of dissents, they generally agree that writer-director David Ayer has again created a classic police drama. End of Watch is, writes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times, “rare in its […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightly, has found few friends among the critics. The story takes place as a massive asteroid is hurtling towards Earth, dooming it to annihilation. “At least it’s an ambitious misfire,” is about the best Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: SAFE

Safe is expected to bomb at the box office this weekend. If it does, however, it won’t be because of the performance of its star, Jason Statham, which is being praised even by many critics who hate the movie. “There’s nothing terribly original about Safe, but it’s a suitably grimy playground for action cinema’s reigning […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: SUPER 8

In general, the reviews for the Steven Spielberg-produced, J.J. Abrams-directed Super 8 are glowing. If there’s a complaint at all, it’s that, given the film’s pedigree, it wasn’t even better. In short, they say, what you get is a little of Spielberg and a little of Abrams — but that might amount to too many […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: GULLIVER’S TRAVELS

Many critics are delivering a Swift kick to the behind of Gulliver’s Travels, which opens wide on Saturday. The 300-year-old tale has been modernized with digital technology, simplified for the younger set, and enhanced with post-production 3D. “Gulliver’s Travels is one of those movies that falls between complete disaster and loads of fun,” writes Betsy […]

CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER

Like its predecessors, the latest Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is being greeted with mixed reviews by critics. “20th Century Fox has taken up the franchise [from Disney] with largely dreary results,” writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. She goes on to remark, “Though there are times when the movie […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

USA Today critic Scott Bowles’s review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows serves as both encouragement and warning to those who still haven’t made up their minds about whether to see it. It is, he says, “arguably the best installment of the planned eight-film franchise, though audiences who haven’t kept up with previous chapters […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: “SPLICE”

Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play the human oddities in Splice, a horror movie about two scientists who create an intelligent part-human, part-animal monster. Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail credits the actors for making the Frankenstein story believable. “These typically aren’t actors’ movies, yet Polley and Brody both round out their characters […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: “SEX AND THE CITY 2”

The Memorial Day weekend is coming up — a time for remembering the dead, and, in the case of Sex and the City 2, even a dead television series. The movie is opening tonight (Wednesday) in some markets — in an apparent effort to grab women who have been granted an extra-long holiday. Critics would […]