Splat 2/5 |
Face Addict (2008) |
"Drugs and Aids have wiped most of these memories away. But the film is at a loss what to do about it." |
James Christopher |
Splat 2/5 |
Factory Girl (2007) |
"Miller is a genuine surprise as the damaged star. But the film leaves her very much as it finds her: a clueless naive." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) |
"The director has always been at his strongest on the cusp between anger and humour, but there are simply too few such inspired episodes here." |
Stephen Dalton |
Splat 1/5 |
Faintheart (2008) |
"Faintheart is a wild folly. It’s a romantic comedy devised, directed, cast, and produced by the online members of MySpace. In this slender respect it’s a genuine sensation. But it looks and feels as knock-kneed as the ingredients." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Fall (2008) |
"The visuals that illustrate the fairytale fantasy are extraordinary. But the film has none of the menacing brilliance of Pan’s Labyrinth. The result is a triumph of style over talent." |
James Christopher |
Splat 2/5 |
Fame (2009) |
"Culturally derivative, structurally bland and almost meaningless." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) |
"At last! A comic-book block-buster that doesn’t feel the need to justify its own existence with ponderous philosophical subtext and bloated running times." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) |
"If the emotions in Mr Fox aren’t as overstated or saccharine as in recent Pixar movies, it is only because Anderson has saved his greatest love for the animation process itself." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 2/5 |
Fast & Furious (2009) |
"This is dumb, loud and fast, with a questionable attitude towards road safety and a supporting cast apparently recruited for their tattoos rather than their acting ability." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Fast Food Nation (2006) |
"Ultimately, Fast Food Nation is preaching to the converted." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Fear(s) of the Dark (2008) |
"Design buffs will be fascinated, but the horror audience will find little of interest." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Fermat's Room (2008) |
"God knows I’m no maths genius but even I can spot that if all four hydraulic presses are pushing the walls inwards at once they would simply jam." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Fifty Dead Men Walking (2009) |
"This is an appalling scenario for a film that unspools with the ghastly enthusiasm of a Hollywood thriller. But Sturgess’s performance as the feckless hero is absolutely stunning." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
Fighting (2009) |
"There are no surprises here – this is a story that has been told before, many times. But Tatum gives us a glimpse of the charisma that could make him a star." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Filth and Wisdom (2008) |
"Despite its many shortcomings and an ending so mushy and neat it would embarrass Richard Curtis, Madonna has done herself proud." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Final Destination (2009) |
"That this fourth instalment brings no fresh ideas to the mix is not a problem; the added dimension is more than enough to reinvigorate interest in this enduringly and deservedly popular series." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Fine, Totally Fine (2008) |
"Picturesque in a slightly exaggerated, highly coloured comic-book style, the film is a little undercooked in terms of character and unpersuasive in its narrative. It’s all quirks but no content of significance." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 1/5 |
Fired Up (2009) |
"A lamentably unfunny flick." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Fireflies in the Garden |
"Julia Roberts, Willem Dafoe and Emily Watson are strictly slumming it in this saccharine melodrama." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 2/5 |
Firehouse Dog (2007) |
"Todd Holland’s film manipulates the prickly issues with scant regard for emotional credibility. The sentimentality is ghastly, but Rex has his moments." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Firm (2009) |
"While it doesn’t exactly break new ground thematically, this is Love’s most accomplished film to date. Like the terrace heroes who are its subjects, it’s as good-looking and stylish as it is dangerously seductive." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
The First Day of the Rest of Your Life |
"While it’s competently put together, you can’t help wondering what the point is." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 1/5 |
First Sunday (2008) |
"The least funny man ever to make a career in comedy movies, Ice Cube hauls his sullen mug back in front of the cameras for the execrable First Sunday." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
Fish Tank (2009) |
"Arnold draws flawless performances from her cast while making exemplary choices with her camera." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Fish Tank (2009) |
"It’s only her second feature film, but with Fish Tank, the British director Andrea Arnold demonstrates that she more than deserves her place in a Cannes competition lineup." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Flame & Citron (2008) |
"A polished, dazzlingly photographed tale of Resistance heroes that is curiously devoid of tension." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
Flanders (2006) |
"Dumont is one of those rare directors who knows what it means to shoot the unspeakable truth. God knows, but we should be grateful. But God should also know about the shame." |
James Christopher |
Splat 2/5 |
Flashbacks of a Fool (2008) |
"It’s a handsome picture but Joe’s lack of evolution is unsatisfying." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Flawless (2007) |
"Fatuous and soulless." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 2/5 |
Fly Me To The Moon (2008) |
"No matter how superficially amusing the title or how appealing the animated characters (not very, to be honest), the fact remains that we are expected to empathise with flies. The animators even try to make maggots cute." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
The Flying Scotsman (2007) |
"What cripples the film’s success as a sporting movie is the fact that its director, Douglas Mackinnon, struggles to find a way of making the climactic cycle races interesting." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 1/5 |
Fool's Gold (2008) |
"A ghastly romantic comedy about a race to find a 17th-century Spanish wreck full of treasure. The film is completely dead behind the eyes." |
James Christopher |
Splat 2/5 |
The Foot Fist Way (2008) |
"The comedy is of the kind that makes you wince rather than laugh; the camerawork is defiantly ugly and the performances are unpolished." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
For Your Consideration (2006) |
"In the most bittersweet of ironies, O’Hara was tipped by some as a potential Oscar nominee for her performance in the film. You suspect that she handled the whole demeaning circus with rather more dignity than her character does." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Four Christmases (2008) |
"These embarrassing truths, indeed the entire film, take a great deal of hard swallowing. The mawkish ending is thoroughly predictable. But it’s not quite as ghastly as the ingredients might suggest." |
James Christopher |
Splat 1/5 |
The Fox and the Child (2008) |
"All the while Winslet bangs away remorselessly, trying to pull the narrative into focus but pushing the viewer farther from it with each cack-handed observation." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 2/5 |
Fracture (2007) |
"It’s enjoyable enough hokum" |
Ian Johns |
Splat 1/5 |
Frankie (2005) |
"Both the film and the character seem so superficial, it’s impossible to work up much sympathy for either." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Franklyn (2009) |
" It’s a convoluted piece of storytelling that repays more on a visual level than on a logical one. But you can’t fault its ambition and imagination." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 1/5 |
Free Jimmy (2006) |
"Deeply unhinged, deeply awful." |
James Christopher |
Splat 1/5 |
French Film (2008) |
"The writing — unfunny, repetitive — is barely sitcom standard; the lighting is brutal; the performances desperate." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009) |
"Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is, unashamedly, a Mini Cooper of a film: small but nippy." |
Dominic Wells |
Splat 2/5 |
Friday the 13th (2009) |
"This is less a reimagining than a reanimation of the long dead corpse of an idea." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
From Russia with Love (1963) |
"The stylish second Bond film From Russia With Love now looks as if it was shot yesterday." |
Dominic Wells |
Tomato 4/5 |
Frost/Nixon (2008) |
"It sounds like an awful night out in the cinema. But you will be amazed. In Frost/Nixon Ron Howard turns this duel between Michael Sheen’s glossy playboy and Frank Langella’s shifty ex-President into a gripping tango of egos." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Frozen River (2008) |
"Frozen River represents one of the best examples of the new trend for austerity and social realism in American indie cinema." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 1/5 |
Fuck (2006) |
"An example of the very worst kind of documentary film-making. The picture contains no insight, no research and no etymological answers. It is simply a string of choppily edited interviews with comedians, porn actors and the morally outraged." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Fugitive Pieces (2008) |
"The movie has little dramatic momentum, and its journey is essentially Jakob’s incremental acceptance of his fate. But Dillane and the writer-director Jeremy Podeswa create such a compelling central character that it hardly matters." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Funny Ha Ha (2005) |
"Refreshingly unpolished, the film uses pained silences like punctuation." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Funny People (2009) |
"Fans of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up will find much the same measure of sentiment and ribaldry — ie, too much of both — and, if it’s possible, even less of a grasp on what lesser film-makers call “story”." |
Tom Charity |
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