MOVIE REVIEWS: THE COUNSELOR

The movie may be directed by three-time Oscar nominee Ridley Scott, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy, and star Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, and Brad Pitt, but all that star power simply doesn’t gel in The Counselor, according to most reviewers, who genuinely seem surprised that it doesn’t. For example, […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE HANGOVER PART III

The latest Hangover movie is getting a jump on its primary rival — the latest Fast and Furious movie — at the Memorial Day weekend box office by opening tonight (Thursday). It may need it. Writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times: “As the expectant audience at the screening I attended waited for The […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: EVIL DEAD

The general concensus among film critics is that if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool horror-film fan, you’ll love the remake of Evil Dead. (Well, the original was called The Evil Dead.) If not, you’re likely to leave early. Of course, the warning is there in the title. Lou Lumenick admits in his review in the New York […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE CROODS

Reviews of DreamWorks Animation’s The Croods can be described as pretty good overall. But none of the critics are particularly thrilled with it, either. Neil Genzlinger in the New York Times devotes just four short paragraphs to the movie, remarking that “it’s colorful and has an appealing central character and — who knows? — might […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

Olympus Has Fallen, the first of two thrillers about a terrorist takeover of the White House, is being taken out by critics the way the terrorists are taken out by Gerard Butler’s character in the movie. Robert Abele in the Los Angeles Times describes it as “a typical slab of Hollywood action in which the […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: ADMISSION

The stars of Admission — Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Lily Tomlin, Wallace Shawn — have all appeared in better funnier movies, the critics agree, making this one seem pretty lame by comparison. Several critics, in fact, don’t know quite how to describe it. Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle settles on “a drama with […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: RED DAWN

Sometimes when watching a movie, advises Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel, “it doesn’t pay dividends to think too hard about how what happens, happens.” He dishes out that counsel in his review of the remake of Red Dawn, which imagines an invasion of the U.S. by, among others, North Korea. (He notes that the […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: SKYFALL

When the last 007 movie, Quantum of Solace, opened in 2008, critics railed at the decision to turn Bond into an action hero. “He is too good for that!” remarked Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. “He is an attitude. Violence for him is an annoyance.” Peter Howell commented in the Toronto Star: “This is […]

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: 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 […]

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