Splat 2.5/4 |
The Machinist (2004) |
"Bale's body-sacrificing performance is worth catching, even if the story is as thin as he is." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Mad Hot Ballroom (2005) |
"The repetition of [the dance] scenes is mollified by moments of the kids off the dance floor, just talking and hanging out. In those moments, the 11-year-olds really shine." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 2.5/4 |
Madagascar (2005) |
"Fast-paced, often funny, loaded with richly detailed computer animation - and, frustratingly, lacking that little bit of soul that turns an OK cartoon into something magical." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) |
"Little more than a greatest-hits rehash of the first movie." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Made of Honor (2008) |
"This strained romantic comedy is a 'chick flick' for dudes, written by Neanderthals." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Made-Up (2004) |
"Delivers billboard-sized messages about preconceptions of beauty and youth..., before the whole thing goes off the rails into a forced and humorless farce." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Magdalene Sisters (2003) |
"A hard pill to take -- but worth it for its outpouring of raw rage, and defiance, on the screen." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (2005) |
"Until we get some poets into space, Magnificent Desolation may be as close as anyone gets to imparting the astronauts' feelings of awe to the rest of us." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Maid in Manhattan (2002) |
"The only suspense is whether Lopez' strapless ballgown or Fiennes' forced smile will drop first." |
Sean Means |
Splat 0/4 |
Mail Order Wife (2005) |
"You know you're in trouble when baseballer-turned-ratfink Jose Canseco isn't the sleaziest thing in your movie." |
Sean Means |
Splat |
The Majestic (2001) |
"Smugness -- the sense that the filmmakers are doing God's work -- permeates much of The Majestic." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Mamma Mia! (2008) |
"Without Streep front and center, this Mamma Mia! wouldn't be worth taking a chance on." |
Sean Means |
Splat 0/4 |
The Man (2005) |
"Did the film reels for The Man arrive at theaters with a white label with a blue stripe and the words "action comedy" in block letters?" |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
A Man Apart (2003) |
"The makers of A Man Apart cannot settle on whether they are making a probing, Traffic-like expose of the drug trade or an audience-pleasing police shoot-'em-up." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
The Man from Elysian Fields (2002) |
"When a movie asks you to feel sorry for Mick Jagger's sex life, it already has one strike against it." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Man of the Year (2006) |
"Levinson lines up a flabby and humorless series of mini-homilies on current political evils, from corporate donations to TV ads, like a Nader-ish "plague on both your houses" scold." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Man on Fire (2004) |
"The only thing more nausea-inducing than [the film's] sensationalist bits of violence is Scott's macabre glee in fetishizing it." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Man on the Train (2003) |
"Leconte ... concentrates less on the destination of his movies than in the journey his characters take getting there." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Man On Wire (2008) |
"Marsh finds Petit is as puckish today as he was 34 years ago." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Man Without a Past (2003) |
"Peltola [gives] a deadpan performance that combines the comic gravity of Buster Keaton and the sweet sentiment of Charlie Chaplin." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Manchurian Candidate (2004) |
"Best of all is Streep, taking on Angela Lansbury's classic villain and imbuing her meaty role with a little Hillary Clinton, a lot of Lady Macbeth and a pinch of Oedipus' mum." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1/4 |
Manderlay (2006) |
"The [plot] degenerates as quickly as von Trier's crude allegory of U.S. foreign policy ... and the pretentiously vacuous Our Town-like staging." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1/4 |
Manna From Heaven (2002) |
"The movie's cloying cuteness and homespun sanctimony make the low production values even harder to forgive." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Margot at the Wedding (2007) |
"I could never decide whether I hated this movie or the people in it, and wound up splitting the difference." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Maria Full of Grace (2004) |
"Moreno conveys much of Maria's plight - her frustration at her dead-end life, or her fast thinking when things go wrong in New York - with quick glances and minimal gestures." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Marie Antoinette (2006) |
"For all the pretty people and prettier costumes stuffed into the film, [Coppola] has left a blank emotional slate on which moviegoers can Etch-a-Sketch any version they like." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School (2006) |
" In this death-obsessed movie, the characters' lives flash before the audience's eyes - really, really slowly." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Married Life (2008) |
"[Brosnan] provides an odd but appropriate balance of laid-back irony and old-fashioned sentimentality that makes Married Life as interesting as married life itself." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Masked and Anonymous (2003) |
"Just because the movie is largely unintelligible doesn't make it unwatchable, though sometimes it's artful in the same way a train wreck can be graceful." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) |
"Weir pulls off the neat trick of creating an action movie whose I.Q. matches its pulse rate." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Match Point (2005) |
"The dialogue is so crisp and straightforward, you might forget you're watching a Woody Allen movie, until one of his occasional one-liners zings you." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Matchstick Men (2003) |
"What masquerades as a comical character study and a sweet relationship drama turns out to be a sharp, if inconsequential, caper flick." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Matrix Reloaded (2003) |
"Everything The Matrix was and more. That is [its] strength and [its] failing." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Matrix Revolutions (2003) |
"[The fight scenes] come as close to recapturing the 'ooh, ahh' factor of the original." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Max (2002) |
"The drama depicts Hitler as passive and pathetic -- nearly, in a sense, letting him off the hook for his grotesque crimes." |
Sean Means |
Splat |
Max Keeble's Big Move (2001) |
"Like Freddy Got Fingered with cafeteria food replacing the body excretions." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
The Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003) |
"[The movie,] by exploiting its subject's celebrity contacts, runs counter to the unassuming way Bingenheimer cultivated those contacts over the years." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) |
"A film that may take more than one viewing for its offbeat brilliance and tender sweetness to become fully apparent." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Mean Creek (2004) |
"[Writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes] coats everything in a brooding self-importance, as if he was intent on making the most depressing After-School Special ever.
" |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
Mean Girls (2004) |
"The most brutally funny teen movie since Heathers." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
The Medallion (2003) |
"The wire effects are shot in such a grainy fashion that they make The Medallion look like cheap costume jewelry" |
Sean Means |
Splat 0/4 |
Meet Dave (2008) |
"Dumb jokes, cheap special effects and Murphy's mugging add up to an eternity in 92 minutes." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Meet the Robinsons (2007) |
"The frenetic pace is a tad bewildering when it comes time to fulfill the movie's title and meet the Robinsons" |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) |
"Sayuri's geisha training plays out in formulaic montages, like The Karate Kid in kimonos. And the cast is allowed to lapse into theatrics that would shame Lillian Gish." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Memory of a Killer (2005) |
"A strong showcase for Declair, who plays Ledda as a cagey survivor on a vendetta and juggling cat-and-mouse games with the cops, his future victims and his faltering mind." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) |
"Heslov's deadpan handling of the movie's strange-but-true vibe, coupled with Clooney's full-tilt devotion to his outlandish character, smooths over the rougher patches of Peter Straughan's quirky screenplay." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (2005) |
"The movie is woefully short on concert footage, which could have shown us the power of metal instead of just telling us." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004) |
"Berlinger and Sinofsky... have created the most revelatory movie about musical creativity since Let It Be." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
Michael Clayton (2007) |
"[Gilroy] ratchets the tension so imperceptibly... that you don't notice how taut the action is. That is, until you notice your fingernails are embedded in the armrest." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009) |
"Part concert film, part backstage documentary, and all tribute to Jackson's painstaking musical perfectionism." |
Sean Means |
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