Tomato 3/4 |
Nacho Libre (2006) |
"It's all good clean fun, as much a celebration of outsider absurdity as Napoleon Dynamite was." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Naked Fame (2005) |
"This look inside gay porn... is tepid at best, and the endless series of meetings and to-the-camera sniping between Glenn and his manager/songwriter is torturously dull." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Namesake (2007) |
"Director Mira Nair is in her element here, ... celebrating her native India and its cross-connections with America." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Nanny McPhee (2006) |
"The script's wry humor survives even the hambone directing of Kirk Jones, who amps up the performances and the color scheme to cartoony extremes." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Napoleon Dynamite (2004) |
"Hess and Heder allow Napoleon to remain his geeky self from beginning to end, a guy who -- like his movie -- dares to be different and succeeds." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Naqoyqatsi (2002) |
"The saturation bombing of Reggio's images and Glass' evocative music ... ultimately leaves viewers with the task of divining meaning." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
NASCAR: The Imax Experience (2004) |
"The film is about as illuminating as the race cars' stickered-on headlights." |
Sean Means |
Splat 0/4 |
National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (2004) |
"Writer-director Gary Preisler just plods through lame grossout jokes (most of them neutered to get a PG-13) that turn 87 minutes into an eternity.
" |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002) |
"Occasionally a joke hits its target, but that can be explained by the law of averages." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
National Treasure (2004) |
"A movie that uses stealing the Declaration of Independence as a starting point? Need I mention that this is a Jerry Bruckheimer production?
" |
Sean Means |
Tomato 1.5/4 |
National Treasure 2 : Book of Secrets (2007) |
"You get the uneasy feeling that they're making it up as they go along." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
The Nativity Story (2006) |
"Stretching this biblical tale to 90-plus minutes requires a lot of padding." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1/4 |
Neil Young - Greendale (2004) |
"Little more than a video vanity project, as fuzzy as Young's guitar chords but not nearly as moving." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Neil Young - Heart of Gold (2006) |
"There are no audience reactions and little behind-the-scenes footage -- just Young and his friends, making beautiful music." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Never Back Down (2008) |
"If you thought the problem with Step Up 2: The Streets was that there weren't enough kicks to the head, this virtual remake is for you." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
Never Die Alone (2004) |
"You [may] wish this movie had died alone before you bought the ticket." |
Sean Means |
Splat 0/4 |
The New Guy (2002) |
"You know after only 10 minutes that this atrociously unfunny high-school comedy is a dud." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The New World (2005) |
"The movie, for all its beauty, is oddly inert." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
New York Doll (2005) |
"Rocking, warm, funny, touching and even heartbreaking. Just like Arthur." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
New York Minute (2004) |
"[It] has the creepy effect of ensuring we see the Olsens as sexually awakened young women -- all within the confines of a PG rating." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Nicholas Nickleby (2002) |
"Nicholas Nickleby may be the only two-hour, 15-minute movie this year that feels like it's going by too fast." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) |
"[Cera and Dennings] have that hard-to-define chemistry that makes you believe their characters are not only predestined but deserving of being together." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Night at the Museum (2006) |
"A movie both kids and adults can enjoy. And you thought those went the way of the woolly mammoth." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) |
"Maybe the movie would be more fun if the ancient Egyptian tablet could bring Ben Stiller to life." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Night Watch (2005) |
"All that matters ... is the onslaught of hallucinogenic images, copious bloodshed and editing that would make a meth addict say, 'Dude, slow down.'" |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) |
"The story of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King,... is like Jack himself - spindly and thin, but with a resounding voice." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Nights in Rodanthe (2008) |
"When the script veers into Sparks' slap-in-the-face melodrama, including two natural disasters, the movie drowns in corn syrup." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Nim's Island (2008) |
"Even the kids in the audience will feel a bit insulted by the dumbed-down dialogue and a bit cheated by the bargain-basement special effects." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Ninja Assassin (2009) |
"The gory decapitations and gushing blood - imagine filling a million balloons with cherry Kool-Aid and using them in a water-balloon fight - turn the action scenes into an indistinguishable sea of red." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
The Ninth Day (2005) |
"This low-key, talky Holocaust drama doesn't try to pummel viewers with visuals of the Nazis' atrocities, but what is described in dialogue is tough enough." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
No Country for Old Men (2007) |
"Every 11 or 12 years, a frequency comparable to sunspot cycles, Ethan and Joel Coen pop out of their dry comic mode to make a thriller that chills you to the bone." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
No End in Sight (2007) |
"The best documentary to be made about the war in Iraq." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
No Reservations (2007) |
"It's hard to tell who's more out of element in No Reservations: the icily beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones playing the lead in a romantic comedy, or Scott Hicks trying to direct one." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 4/4 |
Nobody Knows (2005) |
"We, as adults, know these children are headed slowly toward doom, but the way they maintain their hopefulness makes it impossible to look away." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Noi (2004) |
"After spending most of an hour being made to care about how Nói will solve his problems, our emotional investment evaporates like dot-com stock." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2/4 |
Northfork (2003) |
"There is a lot less going on in Northfork than its dour acting, odd symbolism and funereal take-us-seriously-or-else tone would suggest." |
Sean Means |
Splat |
Not Another Teen Movie (2001) |
"References aren't the same thing as jokes, and often a gag peters out before the scene is over." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Note by Note: The Making of the Steinway L1037 (2007) |
"With its precise editing and thoughtful storytelling, 'Note by Note' is a celebration of craftsmanship - of a piano and of film." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
Notes on a Scandal (2006) |
"Crackles with venomous dialogue. ... Every word slices both ways, wounding the one wielding it as much as the one hearing it." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Nothing Like the Holidays (2008) |
"De Villa and the ensemble cast provide a comfortable, lived-in feeling -- like your own family, only louder." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3.5/4 |
The Notorious Bettie Page (2006) |
"Mol's guile-free performance captures what seems to be the essence of Bettie Page, that of a woman who could turn dirty pictures into good clean fun." |
Sean Means |
Tomato 3/4 |
Notorious C.H.O. The Movie (2002) |
"She can be funny even when she gets on her soapbox." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Notre Musique (2004) |
"The result is, alas, more an illustrated lecture than illuminating insight, a little chunk of purgatory for all but the most diehard of Godard's fans." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
November (2005) |
"Like many dreams, November is long on imagery and short on sense." |
Sean Means |
Splat |
Novocaine (2001) |
"The laboriously twisted plot eventually paints the movie into a corner." |
Sean Means |
Splat 2.5/4 |
Nowhere in Africa (2003) |
"A beautifully shot and honestly melancholy drama marred by a meandering script that has trouble deciding whose story is being told." |
Sean Means |
Splat 1.5/4 |
The Number 23 (2007) |
"There are 23 letters in 'the twist ending is idiotic.' And in 'Joel Schumacher can bite me.' And in 'go to another movie tonight.'" |
Sean Means |
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