Tomato 5/5 |
A Prophet (2009) |
"Audiard reaches a new level with this impeccably modulated prison drama. This is exhilarating filmmaking, a movie which instantly takes its place alongside the greats of the crime movie genre." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Adam (2009) |
"It’s blandly inoffensive but also rather disingenuous, sidestepping the realities of Adam’s condition by investing him with a convenient idiot savant gift for astrophysics and the eyes of a puppy." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 5/5 |
Adventureland (2009) |
"The whole enterprise is infused with a quality of feeling, an integrity, that is rare in such a commercial film." |
Toby Young |
Tomato 3/5 |
Afghan Star (2009) |
"But the documentary reveals that tribalism is only one of the problems. “She should be killed,” says a young man of a female contestant who dared to dance on stage." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
Afterschool (2009) |
"If there is one distinctive and promising voice to come out of the info-bite aesthetic of the YouTube generation it is Antonio Campos, whose debut feature Afterschool puts an intriguing spin on the high-school tragedy." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Agent (2009) |
"The Agent never really transcends its roots as a two-hander for the stage, but the director Lesley Manning does a good job of keeping things moving and production values are top notch." |
Toby Young |
Splat 1/5 |
Aliens in the Attic (2009) |
"Gremlins meets Goonies meets something stultifyingly inept in a sci-fi adventure for the very young." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 1/5 |
Amelia (2009) |
"Hilary Swank is forced to deliver dialogue that sounds as if it was written in Chinese and then translated into English by a computer." |
Toby Young |
Tomato 5/5 |
An Education (2009) |
"This is a wonderful, life-affirming picture that deserves all the prizes it will undoubtedly win. I can’t call it the best British film of the year because it’s still only October. But I’d be amazed if a better one comes along." |
Toby Young |
Splat 2/5 |
Angels & Demons (2009) |
"This graceless and overwrought piece of storytelling will probably earn a Pope’s ransom at the box office, despite its many flaws." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Antichrist (2009) |
"Von Trier has mutilated his own film, turning it into a crazy, hysterical work that alienates the audience with its infantile shock tactics and tedious transgressions." |
Cosmo Landesman |
Tomato 4/5 |
Antichrist (2009) |
"We can scoff and dismiss it as the last gasp ravings of a deranged opportunist. Or we can look, unflinchingly, at Von Trier’s fantastically painful mirror and acknowledge the Id within us all. Now that is scary." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 1/5 |
Antichrist (2009) |
"Given how desperate to shock the film is, it’s surprising that long swathes of it are so turgidly dull." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 5/5 |
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) |
"Anvil! The Story of Anvil has to be one of the most engaging, big-hearted music movies yet made." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
Avatar (2009) |
"Avatar is an overwhelming, immersive spectacle. The state-of-the-art 3D technology draws us in, but it is the vivid weirdness of Cameron’s luridly imagined tropical otherworld that keeps us fascinated." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Away We Go (2009) |
"Away We Go is a reminder that being a successful author does not mean you can dash off a screenplay without learning the craft." |
Toby Young |
Tomato 3/5 |
Awaydays (2009) |
"All around him the movie drips with atmosphere. The evocative sense of place is overwhelming, and perhaps the real star. Birkenhead in 1979 may not have been like this. But it is now." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 3.5/5 |
Afro Saxons (2008) |
"Big hair and bigger egos make for an entertaining and frequently amusing documentary." |
Sam Jordison |
Splat 2/5 |
Afro Saxons (2008) |
"It’s an unpolished and slightly chaotic film that whisks the viewer breathlessly from salon to salon, without stopping to get to know any of the key characters in real depth." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Alexandra (2008) |
"Apart from a thoroughly irritating background track of schmaltzy classical music, this is Sokurov at his shortest and most digestible." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
American Teen (2008) |
" The documentary curriculum is sex, gossip and self-pity. Not exactly original, but disturbingly true." |
James Christopher |
Splat 2/5 |
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008) |
"Has a craven need to please." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 3/5 |
Año Uña (2008) |
"The way that thoughts and images slip and slide over each other is inspired. If only the characters were slightly less emotionally monosyllabic." |
James Christopher |
Splat 2/5 |
Anything for Her (2008) |
"Heavy-handed teases do very little for the overcooked melodrama." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Appaloosa (2008) |
"This is no revisionist western designed to shock life into an unfashionable genre, rather a film that respects the conventions of the traditional western." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
Australia (2008) |
"If it sounds shallow and predictable, Australia is, in fact, anything but." |
Anne Barrowclough |
Tomato 3/5 |
Australia (2008) |
"Australia is an epic love story, and a quite extraordinary piece of kitsch. Everything about the film is wildly over the top." |
James Christopher |
- |
Aaja Nachle (2007) |
Click here to see the review. |
|
Splat 2/5 |
Across the Universe (2007) |
"The more this musical tried to look relevant, the more dated it felt." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
The Aerial (2007) |
"This wonderfully original little film is filled with tacit menace and ominous symbolism; it’s a work of curious and unsettling beauty." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Air Guitar Nation (2007) |
"Despite the film’s admirable brevity it’s still hard to maintain a wry ironic grin for a full 81 minutes." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 1/5 |
Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) |
"A mindless distraction." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Alpha Dog (2007) |
"True, Alpha Dog is a film with no manners. But it has great nerve. What’s truly impressive is how the splintered story is buried by individual performances." |
|
Splat 1/5 |
Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) |
"It’s the kind of family entertainment that makes you reach for the shotgun." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
American Gangster (2007) |
"A cocksure upstart that has swaggered onto the scene, confident that it can take its place at the table with the big boys." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Angel (2007) |
"The film bristles with contemporary subtext and takes swipes at mediocre artists who believe their own press, and the culture of celebrity." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 3/5 |
Anna M. (2007) |
"Writer-director Michel Spinosa, harnessing a powerhouse central performance from Carré, has managed to hit the ground between giddy Hollywood thriller and brooding arthouse character piece." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 1/5 |
Are We Done Yet? (2007) |
"The only thing in Steve Carr’s fatuous movie that earns a few giggles is John C McGinley’s silliness as a new-age builder." |
Edward Porter |
Tomato 4/5 |
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) |
"Andrew Dominik’s sensational film debags a cherished idol. Tyrone Power, Robert Wagner and Roy Rogers famously played Jesse James like Robin Hood. Brad Pitt plays him like a poisonous Mr Hyde." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Atonement (2007) |
"Starry, sexy and unmistakably British, Atonement is the kind of film that comes along all too rarely." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 1/5 |
August Rush (2007) |
"A show-stopping compendium of clichés, bogus emotions, duff dialogue and cringeworthy performances. Yet it’s so naively idiotic that it’s hard to hate. Better just to ignore it." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 2/5 |
Away From Her (2007) |
"This is a difficult watch." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (2006) |
"An informative and unashamedly apocalyptic documentary about the world’s obsession with oil that makes An Inconvenient Truth look positively chipper." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 4/5 |
A Scanner Darkly (2006) |
"It's one hell of a trip, but a bit of a comedown." |
Wendy Ide |
- |
Apocalypto (2006) |
Click here to see the review. |
|
Splat 2/5 |
As You Like It (2006) |
"Faced with As You Like It, one of the Bard’s more tiresome plays, Branagh’s direction loses conviction and his storytelling lacks the engaging enthusiasm of his previous Shakespeares." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat |
Alfie (2004) |
"Jude Law plays the limousine taxi driver like a sex-mad Alan Whicker, whisking us around the hot spots of Manhattan with a sardonic eye on the best places to pick up chicks" |
James Christopher |
Splat |
Against the Ropes (2003) |
"Meg Ryan is busily torpedoing any respect she might have accrued" |
Wendy Ide |
Splat |
Anything Else (2003) |
"Woody Allen tries to extend the shelf-life of his screen persona by hiring a younger, more marketable actor" |
Wendy Ide |
- |
The Animal (2001) |
Click here to see the review. |
Barbara Ellen |