Tomato 2.5/4 |
Adam (2009) |
"Hugh Dancy, so often just a bland safe boyfriend in femme-oriented films, gives an ironically heartfelt performance as the emotionally insulated Adam." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
Adoration (2009) |
"Although the intent is clearly to keep us off balance as to what's real, it also unbalances the movie, hampering its ability to build suspense or involve us in its characters." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3/4 |
Adventureland (2009) |
"The movie does a very good job of capturing the teens and their times. Everything feels right, from the ups-and-downs of late '80s rock, to the way kids really behaved." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Alien Trespass (2009) |
"It's a satire without laughs, a parody without punch lines, a careful copy that replicates everything except the original's life." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Aliens in the Attic (2009) |
"Unfortunately the child actors aren't particularly engaging, and the gags aren't entirely fresh." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
Amelia (2009) |
"Who was Amelia Earhart, really? It's a good question. Unfortunately, it's one beyond Amelia." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1.5/4 |
An American Affair (2009) |
"It's a good rule of thumb that any film that grandly puts "American" in its title is going to try to make some statements way beyond its pay grade." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
American Swing (2009) |
"In the end, the impression isn't that much different from one given by the club's own hairy habitues -- lots of sleazy charm, pounds of gold chains and a smarmy shallowness that goes very, very deep." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2.5/4 |
American Violet (2009) |
"The badly titled American Violet comes from filmmakers who had clearly made up their minds long before they had written a word. And it's aimed at people who have too, before they've seen a frame." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Angels & Demons (2009) |
"Angels and Demons is a truly handsome production, seamlessly mixing real locations with beautifully detailed sets. There are a few good performances here, and some thrills. Yet there's a flatness to the plotting." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3/4 |
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) |
"Director Sacha Gervasi finds a funky charm in this pair." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3/4 |
Avatar (2009) |
"Even if this is old-fashioned storytelling, there’s a lot of it -- and it has Cameron’s directing DNA in every scene." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Away We Go (2009) |
"Away We Go promises a funky emotional road trip, and delivers a few funny snapshots. But it takes too many detours, tarries too long in nothing-to-do backwaters, and finally arrives at a destination that was inevitable from the start." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
American Teen (2008) |
"For adults, it's also, possibly, a wake-up call. Do we really put that much pressure on our children? Are we really that insensitive?" |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3/4 |
Appaloosa (2008) |
"Ed Harris has the kind of head that would look great on a coin, but it looks even better on a movie screen, as he turns his chiseled features this way and that." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3/4 |
Australia (2008) |
"This film is a long love song written in two parts, and these actors duet nicely." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1/4 |
Across the Universe (2007) |
"Across the Universe doesn't have a story so much as a sloppy collage. It drops in character names from the lyrics and shoves in a new song whenever possible. But it only manages to do all that by mangling ideas and misreading the music." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3/4 |
After The Wedding (2007) |
"A deceptively unadorned movie that ends in huge, untidy and enormously satisfying emotions." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
Alpha Dog (2007) |
"Alpha Dog may have some of Larry Clark's territory, and even some of Tarantino's markings. But it's still a mutt. And no matter how much it marks its territory, it never finds its own way home." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Angel-A (2007) |
"Nice as this quietly philosophical mood may be for Besson, it's a little wan for moviegoers, and following on the heels of Arthur and the Invisibles, Angel-A seems less like a detour in his career than the beginnings of a wrong turn." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres (2007) |
"It's one thing to catch Aqua Teen in 15-minute increments on TV, but sitting through a feature-length onslaught is an endurance test even for devoted viewers." |
Lisa Rose |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Are We Done Yet? (2007) |
"For all his scowling bluster, Ice Cube long ago turned into a bit of a teddy bear. (Is this really the guy who rapped on N.W.A.'s 'Straight Outta Compton'?)" |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 4/4 |
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) |
"...an epic film that's part literary treatise, part mournful ballad, and completely a portrait of our world, as seen in a distant mirror." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Astronaut Farmer (2007) |
"What could have been a sagebrush Fitzcarraldo wants to be a feel-good fable." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato |
Atonement (2007) |
"A gripping film." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Avenue Montaigne (2007) |
"Its cozy pleasures will do just fine." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Away From Her (2007) |
"With luck, [more] skills will develop in Polley, and we'll have the opportunity to watch them. For now, though, we have Christie to look at. And the heartbreaking slow-motion tragedy of a vibrant woman being buried alive under the shifting sands." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2.5/4 |
A Scanner Darkly (2006) |
"Aesthetically interesting as it is, the film leaves you feeling somewhat blank and detached, sort of like the main character." |
Lisa Rose |
Tomato 3/4 |
Adam & Steve (2006) |
"One of the most fundamental rights of man is the right to simply have a frivolous good time. And that's a rainbow flag that Adam & Steve proudly waves high." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
Akeelah and the Bee (2006) |
"Akeelah and the Bee won a screenplay contest a few years ago, and it reads as if its writer studied too many screenplays first." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (2006) |
"Just when you start to get caught up in the action, one of the supporting actors shows up, mugging and breaking the tension." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1.5/4 |
All The King's Men (2006) |
"Crawford showed us a man who sold his soul to do good and then, soulless, found himself incapable of resisting evil; Penn gives us a smart actor tearing into an awards-baiting role." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1.5/4 |
American Dreamz (2006) |
"It's a disappointing effort from witty writer-director Paul Weitz (American Pie, In Good Company). He tries to weave a subversive tapestry a la Nashville but only tells a story full of holes." |
Lisa Rose |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
American Hardcore (2006) |
"If it all goes by too fast, and leaves you with a headache when it's done -- well, wasn't that the point all along?" |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1.5/4 |
An American Haunting (2006) |
"There's thunder and lightning and wall-to-wall music. But it still doesn't add up to much of a movie." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1/4 |
Annapolis (2006) |
"The film is part boxing saga, part military recruiting ad and 100 percent cliché." |
Lisa Rose |
Splat 2/4 |
The Ant Bully (2006) |
"While the picture has the star power of Nicolas Cage and Julia Roberts voicing insects in love, they're not nearly as interesting a couple as Woody Allen and Sharon Stone in Antz." |
Lisa Rose |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Apocalypto (2006) |
"The movie doesn't leave you pondering the mysteries of a lost civilization. It leaves you pondering the psychopathology of the director." |
Lisa Rose |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Aquamarine (2006) |
"Girls deserve a fun time at the movies, but they also deserve movies with a better message than Fib, Flirt and Shop." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
Art School Confidential (2006) |
"Every teacher is a burn-out, every student is a fraud and experimental artists are the worst burn-outs and frauds of all." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
ATL (2006) |
"A good message isn't enough to justify a $10 ticket. You also need a good movie." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Aura (2006) |
"The movie's mood is haunting, and its central image of a man able to shed his morality as easily as an old raincoat hints at a filmmaker who had deeper concerns than mere thrills." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
Aurora Borealis (2006) |
"Aurora Borealis is Duncan's story, and it's picked up some of his bad habits; like him, it's not sure what it wants to be." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 1/4 |
Aeon Flux (2005) |
"The picture climaxes with the crashing of a blimp, an image that encapsulates the Hindenburg scale of its failure." |
Lisa Rose |
Splat 1/4 |
Alone in the Dark (2005) |
"Ultra-violent, hyper-mindless and bruisingly loud, Alone in the Dark makes its video game predecessors look like Masterpiece Theater." |
Lisa Rose |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
The Amityville Horror (2005) |
"The startling thing about the remake is that it's one of the better horror films to hit screens in recent months, thanks to its refusal to take itself too seriously." |
Lisa Rose |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Apres Vous (2005) |
"The story crash-lands in contrivance, losing its way in the third act." |
Lisa Rose |
Tomato |
Are We There Yet? (2005) |
"Delivers on some pretty basic childhood fantasies -- chiefly, kids seeing themselves in control, and watching adults in comical pain. And it does it too quickly and competently for their grown-up chaperones to mind much." |
Stephen Whitty |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Aristocrats (2005) |
"There's something fascinating in its experiment of giving 100 comics the same joke to tell. Something provocative in what it has to show us about good humor and bad taste and taboos." |
Stephen Whitty |
Splat 2/4 |
Ask the Dust (2005) |
"The hard-boiled prose is translated into a schmaltzy movie with too much sap and not enough grit." |
Lisa Rose |
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