MOVIE REVIEWS: WRECK-IT RALPH

The reviews are overwhelmingly positive for the videogame-themed Wreck-It Ralph, something that will come as a welcome relief to the workforce at Disney Animation, who have had to endure years of negative comparisons with their corporate siblings at Pixar. Several critics complain that there’s much too much videogame-like running around and crashing in the movie, […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: ALEX CROSS

Tyler Perry rarely allows critics to view his movies before they’re released. Alex Cross is the first movie he has starred in that he didn’t also write and direct (and it’s a significant departure from the previous ones). But it might have been wise for Lionsgate, which is releasing the film, to have dispensed with […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: FRANKENWEENIE

The last time we saw Tim Burton’s name in movie reviews, he was being kicked around painfully for a movie that eventually flopped despite the fact that it starred Johnny Depp. But most critics agree that Frankenweenie is no Dark Shadows. In fact, many are suggesting that Burton has come forth with a classic. Amy […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA

What do monster movies and Adam Sandler movies have in common? Well, usually it’s that they both get lousy reviews. But Hotel Transylvania isn’t really a monster movie — the animated monsters in it are rather cute — and it’s not really an Adam Sandler movie — although Sandler does provide the voice of Dracula. […]

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: ARBITRAGE

Although it is opening in fewer than 200 theaters this weekend, critics are suggesting that you pass up the movies playing in thousands of them and take in Nicholas Jarecki’s Arbitrage starring Richard Gere. This is Jarecki’s debut as a writer-director, and it is an auspicious one. Writes Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal: […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE WORDS

Maybe in the environment of a theater showing art-house fair, The Words, starring Bradley Cooper, would have received more positive words from critics. Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times writes that it “tries too hard to be smart with its highbrow take on the old ‘gotcha’ theme. It is gorgeously shot to look highbrow […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: 2016: BARACK OBAMA’S AMERICA

It was no match for Michael Moore’s anti-George Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, but Dinesh D’Souza’s anti-Barack Obama documentary 2016: Obama’s America was surprisingly hot over the weekend. Widening to 1,091 theaters, it took in $6.51 million, amounting to $5,966 per theater. By contrast, The Expendables, the No. 1 film at the box office, averaged $4,024 […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: PREMIUM RUSH

A film about New York bicycle messengers hardly seems like the sort that would draw much praise from critics, but most of them agree that Premium Rush is in a class by itself. As Roger Ebert puts it in the Chicago Sun-Times: “I’m very weary of routine chase movies. There’s nothing routine about Premium Rush.” […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: HIT & RUN

Ordinarily studio execs, meticulous students of demographics all, target women with romantic comedies and men with car-chase thrillers. With Hit & Run, which opens today (Wednesday), they’re aiming to capture them all with a rom-com/car-chase flick. And critics aren’t sure whether the ingredients have effectively been blended. It makes for “a strange, but strangely entertaining […]

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