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: DREDD 3D

Critics are assuring their readers that it’s OK to enter theaters showing Dredd 3D with low expectations — particularly if they already have seen the flop that Sylvester Stallone created out of the graphic-novel character. Indeed, comments Sean O’Connell in the Washington Post, the new Dredd “proves far superior to the corny misfire attempted by […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: 21 JUMP STREET

It’s funny. That’s the two-word consensus of just about every newspaper film critic in the nation’s largest markets. Each has his/her own variation of stating that, some more enthusiastically than others, but there’s no denying that it’s one of the best-reviewed movies of the year. In particular, critics are praising the performances of Jonah Hill […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: MONEYBALL

Moneyball is coming to the screens at the tail end of the baseball season, as interest in the playoffs mounts. The timing is probably not coincidental, given the fact that much of the film concerns the sensational rise of the cash-poor 2001 Oakland A’s to the division playoffs under the management of Billy Beane, played […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE SMURFS

The Smurfs is receiving little of the admiration that critics bestowed on that other movie with characters who were blue and in 3D. But here and there it is picking up some mostly favorable reviews. Neil Genzlinger in the New York Times observes that the funniest moments in the movie “are either raunchy or scandalous,” […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER

It’s curious that in all of the reviews of Never Say Never, which chronicles the meteoric rise of 16-year-old Justin Bieber from his obscure roots in Stratford, Ontario, Canada to his sold-out performance in Madison Square, there is not a single reference to an earlier teen idol’s remarkably similar journey. Ricky Nelson had in fact […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: I’M STILL HERE

Critics are suggesting that, judging from Casey Affleck’s documentary about him, Joaquin Phoenix may still be here but he’s not all there. In his review of I’m Still Here, Joe Neumaier writes in the New York Daily News: “The whole thing is such a tedious, foul-mouthed mess that it isn’t even worth discussing as a […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE LAST EXORCISM

Compared with the no-budget likes of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, The Last Exorcism, which cost $2 million to make, is a spendthrift affair. For the most part, critics aren’t impressed. Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel calls it “modestly chilling.” Sean O’Connell in the Washington Post describes it as “unnerving.” Other critics […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: VAMPIRES SUCK

The critics verdict of Vampires Suck, a spoof of the Twilight movies: it sucks. “Painfully unfunny,” is the way Jen Chaney describes it in the Washington Post. A “limp lampoon,” comments Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. Bruce DeMara in the Toronto Star calls it “drearily pointless.” And Joe Leydon in Daily Variety remarks: […]