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: THE CAMPAIGN

Kyle Smith, the politically conservative film critic for the New York Post lets loose a torrent of zingers at The Campaign, starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, concluding with the unkindest jibe of all: “Put it this way,” he writes, “Jimmy Carter was funnier than this movie.” He concludes: “My friends, I’ve seen some terrible […]

MOVIE REVIEWS 2: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

Rex Reed of the New York Observer and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune have joined the exclusive clique of critics who have broken ranks with the overwhelming majority who are heaping praise on The Dark Knight Rises. It is the antonym of praise — scorn? ridicule? outrage? — that Reed heaps on the movie. […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: TED

Raunchy? Yes. Funny? Yes. That’s the way most of the nation’s critics have voted in their reviews of Seth MacFarlane’s Ted. In fact, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times minces no superlative: “The funniest movie character so far this year is a stuffed teddy bear. And the best comedy screenplay so far is Ted,” he […]

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: THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

Horror films rarely find a receptive response from critics — until the time they become classics. By and large, The Cabin in the Woods is no exception. But more than a few critics have something positive to say about it. Rafer Guzmán in Newsday, in fact, advises readers to “put it right at the top” […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE HUNGER GAMES

On the whole, critics’ reviews of The Hunger Games are overwhelmingly positive — but they’re not without reservations, plenty of them. Kyle Smith in the New York Post, for example, comments that while it “may be derivative … it is engrossing and at times exciting.” But he then goes on to remark, “Plotwise, the movie […]

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: THE SITTER

While you may have to hunt to find the plethora of end-of-the-year movies with “potential Oscar nominee” writ all over them — most are appearing in a relative handful of theaters and, in many cities, not at all — you’ll have no trouble finding The Sitter, which is being released in thousands of theaters and […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: COWBOYS AND ALIENS

The reviews of Cowboys and Aliens are about as mismatched as, well, cowboys and aliens. Critics either buy the ridiculous concept (this is not a comedy, by the way,) or they don’t. Most don’t. Rex Reed in the New York Observer calls the plot of the movie “idiotic” but allows that it could prove to […]

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