Splat |
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009) |
"This desperate sequel – sorry "squeakquel" – is such a blatant cash-in that the producers might as well have gone straight round to young viewers' houses and stolen their piggybanks." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Avatar (2009) |
"Avatar is a phenomenon you can't ignore, monumentally imposing and done with extraordinary expertise – but the same could be said of the Dubai skyline, and I'm not sure that represents any future worth investing in." |
Jonathan Romney |
Splat |
Avenue Montaigne (2007) |
"Ah, the hardship of being rich and famous!" |
|
Splat |
Bamako (2006) |
"That the G8's policies have been disastrous for Africa won't come as news to anyone who goes to see African art-house films." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
Blood Diamond (2006) |
"DiCaprio deserves his Oscar nomination for the breathtaking intensity of his performance." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Bobby (2006) |
"It makes you wish you were watching a biopic of Robert Kennedy instead." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
The Box (2009) |
"The Box is by no means as indigestible as Southland Tales, and there's as much to relish as there is to groan at." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
Bunny & The Bull (2009) |
"The visual panache is pleasingly crackpot, but that's about as far as the film goes." |
Jonathan Romney |
Tomato |
Cheri (2009) |
"The film works best when it's being a comedy of bad manners. Hampton has honed some glittering, dartlike lines of dialogue, and they're tossed around with poised aplomb by the immaculately dressed cast." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Coraline (2009) |
"It's easy to admire the film's psychedelic surrealism and its marvellous design, but it's not a great deal of fun." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Cracks (2009) |
"Jordan Scott's debut film is essentially a picturesque, slow-motion montage of boarding school pastimes: diving practice, a midnight feast, parcels from home, low-level bitching. I kept hoping Dumbledore would pop in and liven things up." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Delta (2008) |
"Slow, laconic Hungarian art-house fare, featuring rape, pig slaughter, and a symbolic tortoise." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
Departures (2009) |
"This heartfelt, unpretentious, slyly funny Japanese film is worth waiting for." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009) |
"Grant and Parker... are so boringly civil that there must have been a marriage guidance counsellor standing just out of shot." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Dogging: A Love Story (2010) |
"The cast members have enough charm to make you wish you were seeing them in a film that didn't seem like such a terrible, terrible idea." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
The Fountain (2006) |
"The Fountain's message is that life is short, so we should make the most of it, and that's a message which should take one of two centuries, and one or two hairstyles, at most." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
The Girlfriend Experience (2009) |
"It doesn't say anything too deep, but it says it with crystalline style." |
Jonathan Romney |
Splat |
Glorious 39 (2009) |
"Prestigious and serious-minded, but it's still nonsense." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
The Good Shepherd (2006) |
"It's a film for fans of John Le Carre, rather than Ian Fleming." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
Humpday (2009) |
"The sort of film that Kevin Smith must dream of making. It's sweet, piquant, bold and intelligent, balancing its outrageous concept with relationships and conversations that are all too believable." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
I'm Gonna Explode (2009) |
"I'm Gonna Explode never quite explodes but it sets up a potent, sometimes funny, opposition between domestic complacency and youthful rejection, and a slow-burning love story that draws you in." |
John Walsh |
Splat |
The Informant! (2009) |
"It's certainly a novel approach, but it stops the story engaging us either as an espionage thriller or as a comic caper." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
The Invention of Lying (2009) |
"A long, impressively clever sketch that gets hung up on being a sweet-and-sour romcom." |
Jonathan Romney |
Splat |
Law Abiding Citizen (2009) |
"Law Abiding Citizen tries to be two kinds of exploitation film at once, and it ends up as neither." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) |
"Doesn't have much to say except that Japanese are human beings, too." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Little Ashes (2009) |
"It's an interesting scenario, but its workaday execution couldn't be further from the avant-garde aspirations of its protagonists." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Lives of the Saints (2006) |
"Comes across as an obscure Renaissance play which has been badly modernised." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
Me and Orson Welles (2009) |
"The film has a warm, lived-in period feel close to Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, and a similar ain't-theatre-crazy vibe. But there's a hard-bitten realism behind the sweetness." |
Jonathan Romney |
Tomato |
Momma's Man (2008) |
"It's a quiet film, with its own measured pace, but it has more painfully astute observations than most comedies with 10 times the budget." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Mr. Right (2009) |
"It means well, but it's one of those shoddy, very-low-budget British films that don't merit even a tiny release." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Nativity! |
"Isitt's attitude seems to be that a coherent story and some half-decent jokes are surplus to requirements when you can point a camera at some perky children singing and dancing." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Nine (2009) |
"Apart from a touching ballad performed by Cotillard, as Day-Lewis's wronged wife, you could cut out any of them without affecting the story, mainly because there isn't much of a story to affect." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Nowhere Boy (2009) |
"There's certainly the material there for a challenging coming-of-age drama, but Nowhere Boy is no more than a typical celebrity biopic, the kind you might see on BBC4, without any of the flair you might hope for from Taylor-Wood and Greenhalgh." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
The Number 23 (2007) |
"The answers to the story's questions are even sillier than the questions." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
O'Horten (2009) |
"The awkward courtship of these two tongue-tied singletons makes for a winning tragicomic romance, with a dab of magic realism, but it's not recommended as a date movie." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
Old Joy (2006) |
" Like a Raymond Carver story, it seems nothing much at first sight, but its crystallised moment reveals further dimensions the more you muse on it." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
Paranormal Activity (2009) |
"Peli's film revives the honourable tradition of chills-by-suggestion, whereby what we don't see is far scarier than what we do." |
Jonathan Romney |
Splat |
Post Grad (2009) |
"It's not a bad topic for a comedy, especially in the current economic climate, but the film-makers don't have the faintest idea what to do with it." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
School for Scoundrels (2006) |
"It's funny at first, but then loses its way so badly that it somehow winds up as a high-tech espionage thriller." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Séraphine (2008) |
"It's like reading the introductory essay in an exhibition catalogue, except that it takes two hours. Personally, I couldn't stop thinking of Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
A Serious Man (2009) |
"Admirers of the Coens – including those who have lapsed, like myself – will rejoice in their best film for a long while, and one of their most irreducibly oddball." |
Jonathan Romney |
Tomato |
Sheitan (2006) |
"An eyecatching calling card for its first-time director." |
Nicholas Barber |
Tomato |
Sherlock Holmes (2009) |
"The franchise has got itself two cracking characters and one enticing setting. Now all it needs is a half-decent story to go with them." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Sounds Like Teen Spirit |
"Johnson never hits on a story that's worth telling, and his arch interjections about the contest marking the end of war in Europe hit all the wrong notes. Where's Terry Wogan when you need him?" |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Spread (2009) |
"As there's nothing to the central character except his supremely selfish lifestyle, when that's taken from him by the inevitable romance and redemption, it's hard to care what happens." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold |
"This contrived sequel is an interminable, headache-inducing time-waster that never picks up any speed, weighed down as it is by far too many characters, and far too many slow-motion shots of the girls striding towards the camera." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) |
"So tedious and stupid that it makes last year's Twilight seem like Nosferatu." |
Nicholas Barber |
Splat |
Venus (2006) |
"A threadbare comedy-drama, with an insubstantial story and the patronising, post-Pygmalion theme of a working-class slob being reformed by the power of art." |
Nicholas Barber |
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