Tomato 3/5 |
Cadillac Records (2008) |
"But asking her to play Etta James, even packing a few extra pounds around the hips, was a mistake: she wobbles, and tries to sound husky, and the movie sags noticeably under the sense of effort." |
Tim Robey |
Splat 2/5 |
El Cantante (2007) |
"Leon Ichaso's film soft-pedals everything save the language in what often resembles a made-for-cable biopic." |
Mike McCahill |
Splat |
Captivity (2007) |
"Captivity is an abomination, and perhaps a new low in the torture-porn genre: a film I liked even less than Hostel." |
Tim Robey |
Splat 2/5 |
Carriers (2009) |
"Sadly it loses track of its own best ideas, pledging itself to a dreary set of surviving characters whose choices carry no charge." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato |
Casablanca (1942) |
"There's a reason the world loves this wartime film, now digitally restored: more memorable dialogue than should be strictly legal, heartbreaking performances from the two leads and a plot that works with Swiss-watch precision." |
David Gritten |
Splat |
Cass (2008) |
"It never fully convinces you that he deserves a movie." |
Tim Robey |
Splat |
Changeling (2008) |
"Changeling fails because, despite its awful subject matter, it isn't very moving. Eastwood is too classical, too restrained a director to get inside his characters; they feel like well-costumed showroom dummies." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Tomato |
Charlotte's Web (2006) |
"This film does what all children's films should do: not just offer lots of entertaining things to look at, but teach children how to look at the world with curiosity, attentiveness and joy." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Tomato |
The Chaser (2008) |
"It's twisty, provocative and impressively grim, a sort of Asian-extreme Manhunter for the strong of nerve." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato 3/5 |
Che, Part One (2008) |
"Soderbergh directs like a tactician at the map-table, ever assessing the importance of the next ridge. This is of some interest, but he has overthought it, and muddled the importance of Che himself, who cuts an aloof and reproving figure." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato 4/5 |
Che, Part Two (2008) |
"His film is brilliantly shot, capturing the chilly bareness of the landscapes through which the rebels yomp, but it's formalist and clinical to a degree that will challenge viewers eager to identify with the figures it depicts." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Tomato 3/5 |
Cheri (2009) |
"Full of trinket-sized pleasures that never add up to more." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato 4/5 |
Chiko (2008) |
Click here to see the review. |
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Tomato 4/5 |
Chiko (2008) |
"It's hard to take your eyes off Moschitto's bulldog-like antihero - with his dangerous lips and furtive power plays, he makes Vincent Cassel in Mesrine look like Dale Winton's camper twin." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Children (2008) |
"This efficient British chiller ticks the right boxes." |
David Gritten |
Splat 1/5 |
Choke (2008) |
"This adaptation of a novel by American provocateur Chuck Palahniuk is profane, offensive and obscene, and packed with balefully weak jokes." |
David Gritten |
Tomato |
Choking Man (2007) |
"The film marries digicam naturalism to animated fantasy to oddsome but fascinating effect, rendering magical the inner world of the shy and almost muted Jorge. It's an unusual but valuable addition to the cinema of contemporary migration." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Splat |
Chromophobia (2005) |
"It's hard to get past an almost sadistic aloofness in the storytelling, and several of Fiennes's flapping plot strands wither on the vine." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato |
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005) |
"This is a worthy opening salvo, a film that succeeds through the sheer weight of our expectations, and that won't disappoint younger audiences." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Splat |
City of Ember (2008) |
"After the nifty Monster House, it's a disappointingly sluggish film from Gil Kenan." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato |
The Class (2008) |
"The Class confirms and extends Cantet's status as one of the masters of European social cinema. It's a hugely important film." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Tomato |
Climates (2006) |
"Goes beyond distant, remote or even far-flung. It is as spare and isolated a movie about a relationship as has been made for many a year." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Tomato 4/5 |
Cloud 9 (2009) |
"A quiet, insinuating film of rare emotional power and dramatic force that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Tomato 4/5 |
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009) |
"What an unexpected treat this turns out to be – as messy and riotous as a kindergarten food- fight, with teacher tied up in the corner." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato 3/5 |
Coco Before Chanel (2009) |
"Tautou is just terrific, and to recall an actress who could so dominate your memory of a movie, one needs to think back to Audrey Hepburn." |
David Gritten |
Splat 2/5 |
Colin (2009) |
"The absence of that free commodity, narrative surprise, makes it a movie whose resourcefulness you can applaud -- I wish Price well -- while secretly being glad you didn’t pay to see it." |
Tim Robey |
Splat |
College Road Trip (2008) |
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at a new circle of hell: the one where Martin Lawrence is no longer the most irksome presence in a Martin Lawrence movie." |
Mike McCahill |
Splat |
A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2008) |
"It's a display of gross bad faith both as documentarist and lover, and its subject probably deserves never to get laid again." |
Mike McCahill |
Tomato |
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) |
"Bounces around like the smarter and weirder older brother of Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato |
Control (2007) |
"Curtis recalls a time when pop music was about more than ring tones, digital downloads or social networking. A time when there weren't thousands of cable stations and games consoles, and music played a huge role in shaping imaginations." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
Tomato 4/5 |
Conversations with My Gardener (2007) |
"Such life lessons could clearly seem maudlin and patronising. But director Jean Becker and his two excellent leads opt for understatement, and the film finally achieves a subtle triumph - a mood that is both celebratory and bittersweet." |
David Gritten |
Splat |
Copying Beethoven (2006) |
"A great example of that time-honoured genre, the biopic so silly it plays like a spoof." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato 4/5 |
Coraline (2009) |
"A gorgeously hand-crafted and pleasurably detailed piece of work. It’s also genuinely strange, creepy and arresting." |
Tim Robey |
Tomato 4/5 |
Creation (2009) |
"A sad, searching piece of work about the reluctant labour of a great idea." |
Tim Robey |
Splat 2/5 |
Crossing Over (2009) |
"The whole exercise feels exploitative." |
David Gritten |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) |
"The anti-Slumdog Millionaire: a film that's stately, tasteful and genteelly melancholic rather than fevered, rollicking and euphoric. It's a film about time that seems almost out of time." |
Sukhdev Sandhu |
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