Source Code
Game Over: Source Code takes a potentially explosive drama and blows it.
If you haven’t already seen 2009’s Moon, in which Sam Rockwell is a lonely lunar astronaut making discoveries about his own identity, I beg you to do so before you see Source Code, which will ...
Paul
Alien Approach: Paul is refreshingly nerdy, otherworldly, sweet, fantasy fun.
What if you and your most superbly geeky bestest friend met an alien? I mean an honest-to-Carl Sagan extry terrestrial. What if? You would plotz. You would. Like Nick Frost’s Clive does here, you would ...
Rango
Great CGI, clever themes and top directing make Rango the best movie of 2011 so far.
A stranger shambles along the dusty main street of a down-on-its-luck town and bursts through the swinging doors of the saloon, causing a sensation. It’s not an ordinary town, even by the standards of the ...
Drive Angry
Hell on Earth:Drive Angry takes cinematic violence and sex to Hades and back again.
I cannot help but recall the excellent advice of Groundhog Day’s Phil Connors: “Don’t drive angry.” Yes, he passes these words of wisdom on to a groundhog, which would be likely to do no driving ...
I Am Number Four
They Bore Among Us: I Am Number Four can’t be counted on for much compelling content.
High school is hard. High school is even harder when you’re a secret alien from another planet in hiding from big scary guys with enormous feet and weird tattoos on their bald heads who are ...
Sanctum
Sanctum is a bottom-dweller, but in a very good (and 3D) way.
Here’s the deal: Sanctum is extreme people in extreme danger in an extreme place. In 3D! The good kind of 3D, the kind that immerses you in a place you’ve never been before, not the ...
The Mechanic
Bloody Mess: The Mechanic assassinates itself in style.
The auteur who gave us Con Air, The General’s Daughter and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is back, extending his cinema terrible of violent, unthinking nihilism and brutal, pointless action. Oh, and misogyny for fun. Hoorah! ...
The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet, Seth Rogen style, is a slick spin on the superhero.
He doesn’t exactly kick ass. He is an ass. Life as a masked crime fighter with some slick wheels to groove him around town is not the chick magnet he imagined it would be: The ...
True Grit
True Grit includes beautiful performances but lacks pop.
It slips by almost unnoticed. Mattie Ross, relating her own tale of her adventures with U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, mentions her sister twice… and calls her by two different names. First she is Victoria, then ...
Tron - Legacy
Despite its pedigree, Tron: Legacy does not impress.
I’m really starting to think they hate us, the masters of our so-called entertainment. At the very least they surely hold us in disdain, see us as inconvenient obstacles to their god-granted profits. If only ...
Tangled
Disney delivers a surprisingly moving animated magic with Tangled.
One had to wonder – I certainly did – how Disney came to be telling a Rapunzel story. The original girl with the fantastically long and strong golden hair of folklore was no kind of ...
Wild Target
The preposterous yet poignant Wild Target hits the mark.
Didn’t get enough of Rupert Grint and Bill Nighy in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? Or just need some relief from the unrelenting grimness of Part 1? Check them out – teamed up with ...
Burlesque
Burlesque
Oh, cheese, glorious cheese! Christina Aguilera gets off a bus from Iowa – yeah, like she’s from Iowa – in Los Angeles with nothing but a coupla bucks in her pocket (which almost immediately get ...
Potter Pooper
Potter Pooper
It’s always been a given that fans of the Harry Potter books were going to enjoy the Harry Potter movies, whatever their faults as movies may have been. But it has also been the case ...
Megamind
Dreamworks’
You know those trailers that give away the whole film? I hate them too… and it seems as if every trailer is that spoileriffic these days. Which is why I wasn’t so keen on Megamind, ...
Buried
Boxed In: Buried takes an impossible premise and transforms it into a hair-raising horror.
How did anyone dare to do this? How did anyone think they would get away with it? Most audacious of all, perhaps: Did anyone have any notion that such a recklessly bold premise for a ...
Red
Red’s clever story and kick-ass cast deliver where other over-the-hill action flicks croaked.
Of all the washed-up, washed-out, over-the-hill, too-old-for-this-shit, action-hero movies we’ve had thrown at us this year – The A-Team, The Losers, The Expendables – Red is by far the most amusing, the most clever, the ...
Missed It by That Much
The Virginity Hit whiffs because it’s dead unsexy.
“When the four of us entered high school,” teenaged filmmaker Zack notes sadly as The Virginity Hit opens, “we were all virgins.” Well, duh: You were 14 years old. I suspect that there’s meant to ...
The Town
Ben Affleck thriller represents a stunning directoral coup.
Who’da thunk Ben Affleck would turn out to be one of the most enthralling American film directors of the early 21st century? Because now, with The Town, we have proof positive that his first film, ...
machete
Class Warrior: Machete provides a slice of surprisingly effective entertainment – and political commentary.
Remember that crazy-funny fake trailer for the nonexistent ’70s Mexploitation flick Machete that preceded the “Planet Terror” segment of Grindhouse a few years back? Gonzo indie filmmaker Robert Rodriguez whipped up that two-and-a-half-minute bit of ...
the american
Clooney’s Shooting Blanks The American is a pretentious portrait of a hitman.
I didn’t think it was possible. I was certain that there was no movie that I could not endure if it meant I could gaze at George Clooney for two hours. I was wrong. I ...
Lottery Ticket
Stereotypical ghetto “comedy” leaves laughs up to chance, and fails to deliver.
Kevin (rapper Bow Wow) doesn’t play the lottery, because he thinks it’s “designed to keep poor people poor by selling them false dreams.” So why does he buy a lottery ticket anyway? Because he couldn’t ...
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Director Edgar Wright’s graphic novel adaptation is stylish but sexist.
Here comes male adolescent sexual angst as “an epic of epic epicness,” as the poster tagline informs us, and as the movie matches in attitude and action. It’s the indulgence of everything a not-quite-adult, no-longer-a-kid ...
Salt
Tasty Spy Stuff: Angelina has a Jolie old time in retro, but timely, flick about Russian double agents.
I had to snort with something like derision when I heard the premise: “Angelina Jolie is a Russian spy! Or maybe not!” Russian spies? What is this, 1982? Is this a missing James Bond movie? ...
Despicable Me
Totally Gru-vy: Despicable Me is an animated feel-good summer movie that delivers on its promise.
I’m still considering whether I’m ready to blaspheme… No, wait: I’m coming to a decision… Yes, I shall blaspheme: Despicable Me is better than Toy Story 3. There. I said it. Only a little bit ...
Knight and Day
I Spy a Dud: Knight and Day lacks thrills, story line, or decent performances, despite the presence of stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.
Is it too much of a “spoiler” to “reveal” that a certain movie cannot be spoiled? That a movie has no big surprises on offer to blow you away? That a movie is absolutely, 100 ...
The Karate Kid
Enter the Draggin’: Remake of young Kung Fu classic packs a soft punch.
“Karate! Kung fu! Whatever!” Mom says. Exactly! Who cares what the Asian ass-kicking is called. Not important! The important thing is that the cute little American kid will teach the Chinese ignoramuses a thing or ...
Splice
Mommy Issues: Splice depicts sexual torture, but is also a pain to sit through.
Science fiction horror movies have long been informing us that there are realms in which Man Was Not Meant To Meddle. This warning usually comes via a solemnly silly overblown cautionary tale that revels in ...
The Losers
A Soupçon of Snark: The Losers wins by not pretending to be anything more than featherweight fun.
You’re not too long into this wickedly wonderful little smashup of fluff – maybe 20 minutes or so – before you think, “Wait: Did this open with a ‘previously on The Losers’ segue?” It didn’t, ...
How to Train Your Dragon
Fire Breathing:
It’s been a long time since I had to stifle the urge to shout, “no, no, NO!” at a movie screen in order to ensure that everything turned out okay in the end. Because not ...
Green Zone Mass Distraction:
Political thriller starring Matt Damon raises almost as many questions as the invasion of Iraq.
Spoiler alert! Jason Bourne does not find the WMDs in Iraq. Sorry to ruin Green Zone for you, but surely CNN did that years ago. Also: There is no Santa Claus. But it would be ...
Brooklyn’s Finest
Law and Disorder: Brooklyn’s Finest brings new life to police procedural genre
Is it because I’m a New Yorker myself that I am generally enthralled by tales of the NYPD? Or does perhaps the apparent endless appeal of TV franchises such as Law & Order – as ...
Cop out Selling Out
Kevin Smith’s new flick isn’t worth a ticket, on an airline flight or in a multiplex.
Shame on Silent Bob. I realize that times is tough and everyone’s gotta make a living, and that that’s probably why Kevin Smith agreed to direct a big-budget studio buddy action comedy. But shame on ...
Shutter Island
Shuttering Scorsese: Adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s thriller is stylishly ominous, but ultimately turns into a nonsensical exercise in predictability.
Gee, for some really weird inexplicable reason, I cannot get the voice of the fantastic Mrs. Fox out of my head. When she discovers her husband, the felonious Mr. Fox, up to no good (this ...
The Wolfman
Untrue Grue: The Wolfman is at the door, but the story lacks a dramatic core.
The metallic tang of blood is all over the elegant facade of this mysteriously disappointing, dispassionately underpowered story of a British aristocrat who dances with the devil, in the form of a werewolf curse, in ...
Youth in Revolt
Revolting Rendition: Teen flick reinforces gender clichés without redeeming wit or intelligence.
Oh, someone deliver us from boys and their self-entitlement, boys and their cluelessness, boys and their rage when male privilege fails to extend itself toward them in a manner they deem proper. If boys don’t ...
Sherlock Holmes
Elementary Perfection: Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law rock the house with new interpretations of Sherlock Holmes and his iconic sidekick.
Sherlock Holmes is one of the great characters: impossibly Byronic, with his superior intelligence and (apparent) imperviousness to the fairer sex; impossibly misanthropic, with his disdain for almost everyone in the world but his amanuensis, ...
Avatar
Biological Diplomacy: In 'Avatar', director James Cameron takes you on a mindblowing trip through outer, and inner, space.
If there’s one thing science fiction fans might agree on, it’s that we long for another world. That’s what James Cameron has given us in Avatar: a gift to anyone who takes science fiction seriously. ...
Invictus
A Whole New Ball Game: Clint Eastwood tells the story of Nelson Mandela’s political and personal triumph through the unusual prism of a sports saga.
Hoorah! Nelson Mandela united South Africans, black and white, and overcame their long-held suspicions and hatred and bigotries in the post-apartheid upheaval by getting them to refocus their hate on Australia and New Zealand. Or ...
Brothers
Home Front: 'Brothers' is a timely and artful movie about military madness – and the complications of family life.
I hate that because movies about the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed to catch the interest of audiences, I feel like I have to say, “Oh, don’t worry, Brothers isn’t really about ...
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Going Gothic: 'New Moon' vamps on romantic clichés and drags on without wit or depth.
There came a point in this mind-numbing, butt-numbing – its running time is over two hours, but feels more like two days – ramble through unironic adolescent sexual terror when a band of buff, shirtless ...
Planet 51
Alien Territory: Dogs have the best of it in latest sci-fi parody.
We have no idea why it’s called Planet 51, or why the pleasantly blobby green humanoid aliens wear no trousers – jackets and ties or T-shirts for the males, and of course the ladies wear ...
Pirate radio
Full of Static: 'Pirate Radio' fails to make a comedic splash.
I’d have thought, what with the spirited information and entertainment free-for-all on the Internet, that a movie made today about outlaw broadcasters in the 1960s would be more… I dunno: interesting? Relevant? Maybe just funny ...
Amelia
Flying into the Sun: 'Amelia' soars in Mira Nair adaptation.
I want to see a movie about Amelia Earhart that is thrilling. That is Indiana Jones adventurous. Someday, I think, someone will make a movie like that about Earhart, about whom that kind of story ...
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
Feigning Freaky: The talented people who produced Cirque du Freak didn’t need to.
It sorta sucks. John C. Reilly as a vampire? I thought: How can that not be funny? And it is funny, in a gentler, more unassuming way than you might expect from a movie by ...
The Boys Are Back
Daddy Issues: Loss and redemption addressed in a surprisingly moving drama.
It’s hard to believe we haven’t seen Clive Owen in a movie like this one before. We’re so used to seeing him as tough-guy cops and hardass assassins that it comes as something of a ...
Taking Woodstock
Some Kind of Wonderful: Taking Woodstock revisits and reinvents a romantic ’60s.
Maybe it’s not totally true that Woodstock was awesome. Maybe it really was just a bunch of smelly unwashed hippies getting high and ending up slathered in mud and not even being able to hear ...
Shorts
Blurred Vision: Rodriguez takes Shorts to the limit, with limited success.
I’ll give Robert Rodriguez this: He follows his own vision, and he can do so because he gladly spurns Hollywood to make movies, almost quite literally, out of his Austin, Texas garage, with a couple ...
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Quantum Love: Love is timeless for this lovely book-to-movie adaptation.
Will The Time Traveler’s Wife turn out to be the loveliest adaptation of a novel ever to get the biggest boos from diehard fans of the book? Could be. The ending, for one, is different: ...
Funny People
Tears of a Clown: Judd Apatow returns to his base of painful, wise laughs in Funny People.
Oh, people are gonna hate this movie. Look, the jokes are not jokes in Funny People. The humorous-sounding bits of dialogue are not intended to make you laugh so much as they are intended to ...
