MOVIE REVIEWS: THIS MEANS WAR

This Means War is taking a volley of shots from the nation’s leading newspaper film critics, many of whom suggest that it’s simply not worth the price of today’s admissions. With a series of “what if?” questions, Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe provides a summary of the improbable plot, then asks, “What if people [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: SAFE HOUSE

Several critics are drubbing the script for Safe House, starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, but they’re missing the point, other critics argue. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times suggests that the “business-as-usual” script is offset by “expert direction” by Daniel Espinosa. The Swedish director, says Turan, has given Safe House “an unmistakably stylish [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE WOMAN IN BLACK

The reviews for Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Harry Potter film are decidedly mixed. The Woman in Black is a period piece, a ghost story and a stage for Radcliffe to prove that he can transform himself into a far different character than Harry. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times suggests that he has only partially [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: RED TAILS

If, as George Lucas has announced, Red Tails, his take on the all-black Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, turns out to be his last Hollywood movie, he’s going out in a blaze of critical indifference. Wesley Morris, one of the few black film critics for a major publication, concludes his review in the Boston [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: CONTRABAND

Critics are divided almost equally over the merits of Contraband, the new thriller starring Mark Wahlburg as a retired smuggler forced to return to his old business. On the one hand, there’s Roger Ebert who dismisses the movie as “this crap” in his review in the Chicago Sun-Times. On the other hand, there’s Joe Morgenstern [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: NEW YEAR’S EVE

New Year’s Eve boasts a skillful comedy director, Garry Marshal, and an imposing cluster of stars, including Halle Berry, Hilary Swank, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Cary Elwes, James Belushi, Penny Marshall, Matthew BroderickBon Jovi, Zac Efron, Ludacris, Abigail Breslin, Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel, Ryan Seacrest, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ashton Kutcher, and more. (Oh, and [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER?

Producers of What’s Your Number? have dialed the wrong one with this latest R-rated raunch-com aimed at women and starring Anna Faris and Chris Evans, most critics argue. They suggest that except for good looks the two leading characters are not individuals whom you would want to spend 106 minutes with — not in real [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: WARRIOR

Director Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior is depending on positive word-of-mouth for ticket sales, and if reviews are any indication, the mixed-martial-arts movie will get it. They are overwhelmingly positive. Take Roger Ebert’s in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example. “This is a rare fight movie in which we don’t want to see either fighter lose,” he writes. [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: SHARK NIGHT 3D

Movie critics finally had a chance to sink their teeth into Shark Night 3D on Friday night, lining up at the box office like everyone else after the studio decided not to show the film to them in advance. Their criticism of the PG-rated horror flick was actually rather subdued. It’s “a movie that isn’t [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: FRIGHT NIGHT

Fright Night is one of those rare horror flicks that actually attracts — horrors! — several decent reviews. In the case of A.O. Scott’s in the New York Times, it’s even a jarringly cerebral one. He writes that “sociological and psychosexual implications hover around the edges of the frame and between the lines of the [...]

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