August Rush will not be for everyone, but it works if you surrender to its lilting and unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry.
Comment
11/22/07
August Rush (2007)
38
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:116
Fresh:44
Rotten:72
Average Rating:4.8/10
Consensus: Though featuring a talented cast, August Rush cannot overcome the flimsy direction and schmaltzy plot.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Feb 21, 2008 Wide
US Box Office: $31,529,568
Synopsis: AUGUST RUSH is part romance, part gentle fantasy, but this sweet drama is all heart. When young cellist Lyla (Keri Russell) and rock musician Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) meet at a party in the mid... [More]
Starring: Freddie Highmore, Robin Williams, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Director: Kirsten Sheridan
Reviews for August Rush
Top CriticPandering to the point of offensive.
11/22/07
Seems to want to wear its schmaltz on its breast pocket as if it were a medal of honor.
11/21/07
Far from the year's worst film, but it might be the year's biggest debacle -- it's hugely, ostentatiously bad.
11/21/07
The leaden script is full of empty romantic pronouncements that sound neither believable nor wondrous.
11/21/07
[An] odd, quasi-mystical movie that’s too silly for adults to take seriously and frankly too weird for kids.
11/21/07
Exuberantly bad and strenuously preposterous.
11/21/07
Intended as a fuzzy family fable, August plays more to the gag reflex than to the heart.
11/21/07
Top CriticMost of the time, the material is quietly, subtly perfect.
11/21/07
If it isn't brilliant cinema, it's honest and powerful.
11/21/07
[An] inane musical melodrama.
11/21/07
The filmmakers are so deadly earnest about the power of music and love and all that stuff, you just twiddle your thumbs waiting for the inevitable.
11/21/07
Schmaltzy and borderline insufferable.
11/21/07
It would be nice to say this predictable fantasy has such a big heart, we can forgive its excesses. But director Kirsten Sheridan overplays nearly every already-corny scene.
11/21/07
August Rush feels like the cinematic equivalent of being stuffed with fruitcake and doused with a gallon of egg nog.
11/21/07
Top CriticAlthough Williams seems to be in another film altogether, Russell and Rhys Meyers make an attractive and believable would-be couple, and Highmore may actually be the best child actor working today.
11/21/07
The fairy-tale-like family film is one slow, saccharine ride.
11/21/07
The goal is to drive mothers everywhere insane with the urge to rescue him and brush his hair (or the other way around), and in my case it worked.
11/21/07
It's hard to believe in the magical power of music to heal and connect lost souls when the tunes are lame.
11/21/07
Director Kirsten Sheridan has no interest in keeping August Rush tethered to reality or toning down the sentimentality.
11/21/07
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