Movie Reviews
City of Ember
Twentieth Century Fox's partnership with Walden Media, specializing in family-friendly fantasy productions, has yielded mixed results so far, both critically and commercially. "Nim's Island" scored a hit, while "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" failed...
Quarantine
Last year, a film called "" was released in Europe before making the rounds at the world's horror festivals, thrilling audiences with its you-are-there account of a viral outbreak in an apartment building that turns people into raging maniacs. The fi...
The Express
You could go into "The Express" knowing nothing about its subject, late-'50s college football legend Ernie Davis, and still guess what's going to happen many scenes before it does. It's pointed out several times that no black athlete has won the Heis...
Happy-Go-Lucky
Do you know people in real life who are relentlessly perky and chattery, oblivious to the legitimate dangers in the world, and unable to take anything seriously? Of course you do. And do those people drive you crazy? Of course they do.
What's rem...
RockNRolla
You'd think that being married to Madonna, Guy Ritchie would have picked up on the value of occasionally reinventing oneself. But no, he keeps making the same movie, the same ultra-cool exercises in British gangster violence and stylish criminal shen...
Blindness
The strange story related in the film "Blindness" is an allegory. It wears its allegoricalness on its sleeve, setting itself in an unnamed city with unnamed characters who experience unexplained oddities that would not occur in the real world. What d...
Flash of Genius
A moment of high drama occurs in "Flash of Genius" when the protagonist, electrical engineer Robert Kearns, sees a new Ford automobile drive past him in the rain with windshield wipers that move ... intermittently!!!
This fact-based, well-meaning,...
An American Carol
"An American Carol" isn't very funny, which I realize may be a deal-breaker, considering it's a comedy. But it's a fascinating artifact, an experiment in something that you don't see very often: satire from a right-wing point of view, aimed at the le...
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Fans of the novel "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist" may not approve of the film version, which, from what I understand, alters Nick's personality somewhat to fit Michael Cera, the actor who plays him. If the changes are indeed egregious, then I ...
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
To: Scott Weinberg, managing editor, Cinematical
From: Eric D. Snider, blogger/reviewer
Subject: "Beverly Hills Chihuahua"
Hey Scott --
When you assigned me to review "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," I assumed it was because we both expected it to ...
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
Simon Pegg, the British actor who wrote and starred in the fiendishly clever "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," should not have been cast as the lead in "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People." The character, a journalist named Sidney Young who ...
Rachel Getting Married
The character at the center of "Rachel Getting Married" is Rachel's sister, Kym, a barely recovering drug addict and alcoholic who has gotten out of her latest rehab stint just in time for Rachel's wedding. But why, you ask, if the movie is about Kym...
Religulous (documentary)
If anyone is more arrogant, condescending and smug than Bill Maher, I don't want to meet that person. Funny and insightful, yes. Someone I'd want to hang out with, no. This comes into play with "Religulous," Maher's smarmy documentary that basically ...
Appaloosa
There's no question "Appaloosa" is a Western. It's set in 1882 in the New Mexico Territory, it has tin-star-wearing city marshals getting into gunfights with ornery cusses, it includes some scenes involving problems with Indians -- the whole nine yar...
Miracle at St. Anna
Spike Lee doesn't do himself any favors by being such a strident, humorless jackass in real life, but he can sure make a good movie when he wants to. "Miracle at St. Anna," based on a novel by James McBride, is an accomplished, powerful World War II ...
Nights in Rodanthe
The ads say "Nights in Rodanthe" is based on a novel by the man who wrote "The Notebook," and that might tell you everything you need to know. Will there be schmaltz? Will it be a weepy romance? Will death and mourning play a role? Since it's based o...
Eagle Eye
"Rachel's kid plays the trumpet!" That's one of the very exciting lines of dialogue shouted in "Eagle Eye," a preposterous but not altogether unamusing techno-thriller about government surveillance and the innocent civilians caught in its web. (Dick ...
The Lucky Ones
Many films have sought to portray the terrible damage inflicted by war against a soldier's mental and physical health, but "The Lucky Ones" takes this concept to new depths by depicting a trio of Army personnel who have been messed up only in amusing...
Choke
Like all of Chuck Palahniuk's novels, "Choke" is about several things, all of them perversely brilliant, few of them discussable in polite company. A Palahniuk book ("Fight Club" is his most famous) is like a slap in the face that makes you laugh and...
My Best Friend’s Girl
You know what I'm tired of? I'm tired of romantic comedies about people who have special, magical relationship "skills" that they use to make money. You had "Hitch," where Will Smith knew everything about women and could sell you his expertise. Then ...
Battle in Seattle
Watching “Battle in Seattle” is like being jabbed in the belly with a police baton, and not in a good way. Written and directed rather ambitiously by the actor Stuart Townsend, who has never written or directed anything before, it uses fictional char...
Ghost Town
At first you think "Ghost Town" is about this jerk named Frank, played by supreme jerk-player Greg Kinnear. We meet him as he's on the phone, chewing out his Realtor for getting his wife mixed up with his girlfriend. ("Does 'Amber' sound like the wif...
The Duchess
Once "The Duchess," a sumptuous but empty melodrama, really kicks into high gear, you might expect Lord Jerry of Springer to emerge and start handing out advice to the dysfunctional royals. This mostly true story of Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, Duche...
Lakeview Terrace
Everything in "Lakeview Terrace" is in black and white, and I'm not just referring to the film's racial overtones. The bad guy, Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson), is an argumentative bully who drives a heavy-duty pickup truck with a yellow ribbon magne...
The Family That Preys
Tyler Perry has been growing as a filmmaker right before our eyes. His string of awful, simple-minded comedy-dramas was followed by this March's "Meet the Browns," which wasn't half-bad, and now "The Family That Preys," which also isn't half-bad. The...
Burn After Reading
Joel and Ethan Coen have never made a bad movie, and "Burn After Reading" certainly is not one. It is, however, a lesser Coen work, a negligible dark comedy that will be remembered alongside, say, "The Ladykillers" rather than with, say, "The Big Leb...
The Women
The gimmick of "The Women" is that no men appear anywhere in it -- not as background extras, not as voices on the phone, nowhere. It's all women, all the time. Which might sound empowering and feminist, except that the women are all shallow, vain, an...
Righteous Kill
I don't like to toot my own horn -- I prefer to have your mom toot it for me -- but I guessed who the bad guy was in "Righteous Kill" based solely on the trailer. The trailer, people. It shouldn't be this easy. The film has exactly one clever idea th...
Towelhead
As if being an adolescent teenager weren't difficult enough, Jasira -- the uncertain but strong-willed 13-year-old in "Towelhead" -- is also an Arab-American living in Texas in the midst of the 1990 Gulf War. You want more? The family man two doors d...
Fear Me Not (Danish)
If "The Shining" taught us one thing, it's that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. In the atmospheric thriller "Fear Me Not," the other side of that equation is unnervingly laid out: all play and no work yields the same result.
Mikael Neu...
Mister Foe
“Mister Foe” is Hallam Foe, a 17-year-old Glasgow boy (played by Jamie Bell) who has had trouble adjusting since his mother’s death two years ago -- i.e., he’s become a peeping Tom who wears Mum’s makeup like war paint and spends hours poring over her death certificate. The film, a brooding, occasionally sexy psychological drama, follows Hallam to London, where he falls for a hotel employee (Sophia Myles) who has relationship issues of her own. Though essentially an ordinary coming-of-age story, it has some intriguing quirks that give it personality.
Disaster Movie
By my count, there are at least 25 movies referenced in "Disaster Movie," the latest abominable train wreck engineered by the untalented hacks who excreted "Date Movie," "Epic Movie," and "Meet the Spartans." Note that I do not say "Disaster Movie" s...
College
Hey, everybody, it's a Labor Day clearance sale! We gotta get rid of these leftover summer movies before the fall models come in! Quick, anybody in the market for a rip-off of "Superbad"? All it's missing are the likable characters and the good perfo...
Traitor
"Traitor" has a fine cast of actors and two or three good ideas. What it mostly offers, though, is lip service, a tendency to bring up hot-button issues, frown thoughtfully at them for a few moments, then set them down again before moving on to the n...
The House Bunny
Since her big break in "Scary Movie" eight years ago, Anna Faris has appeared in about a dozen comedies, usually as a ditzy blonde, a vain prima donna (she was a scene-stealer in "Lost in Translation"), or a combination thereof. And while the movies ...
Death Race
A movie like "Death Race," in which hardened prisoners drive tricked-out cars and attempt to cross the finish line without being killed by the other racers, has exactly one shot at being enjoyable: It must present the race in a thrilling, dynamic fas...
Hamlet 2
In a year punctuated with very funny movies, "Hamlet 2" stands out as the most peculiar and comedically risky. Its style of humor is an almost indescribable mixture of social satire, broad slapstick, and dry irony. I've seen it twice, seven months ap...
The Rocker
I like the premise of "The Rocker" so much -- middle-aged wannabe rock star insinuates himself into his teenage nephew's band -- that I'm inclined to go easy on it solely out of good will. It's likable enough, a lightweight rock 'n' roll comedy punct...
Mirrors
"Mirrors" operates on two creepy devices that have long been staples of horror movies. One is where a movie character looks into her bathroom mirror, looks away, and when she looks back again there is someone behind her. The other device, less common...
Henry Poole Is Here
Full of stock characters doing stock things, "Henry Poole Is Here" is the kind of movie where you could read the first 20 pages of the screenplay and accurately predict what will happen in the remaining 80. Not that predictability is a bad thing, nec...
Fly Me to the Moon
Perhaps we've been spoiled by the energetic, technologically advanced animated films like "WALL-E" and "Kung Fu Panda." In the olden days, we'd have been delighted by "Fly Me to the Moon," not even caring that it's a flat, lifeless, uninspired 3D exe...
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
For months we have wondered why Woody Allen gave his new film the unwieldy title of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." The answer is a bit anti-climactic: the movie opens with a narrator saying, "Vicky and Cristina were spending the summer in Barcelona." So...
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
The only thing slightly mollifying my hatred for "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is that it's meant for kids, not adults. It's shallow, cheap, and silly, just like a Saturday-morning cartoon -- which is what it's supposed to be. "The Clone Wars" will lau...
Tropic Thunder
Twenty years ago, "Tropic Thunder" would have been too much of an insider comedy, accessible only to the most knowledgeable of Hollywood devotees. But as writer/director/star Ben Stiller has pointed out in interviews, nowadays everyone's an insider. ...
Elegy
You can tell "Elegy" is a "prestige" film because when its famous-author main character appears on a talk show, the host is not Jay Leno or Jon Stewart but Charlie Rose. (PBS, represent!) You can also tell it's a prestige film because it features fan...
Red
Consider "Death Wish." In the original film, Charles Bronson sought revenge against the thugs who raped his daughter and killed his wife -- heinous acts that the audience enthusiastically agrees ought to be punished, even if it requires vigilantism. ...
Hell Ride
The problem with making movies in the “grindhouse” style is that true grindhouse movies, almost by definition, were not seen by very many people. The target audience for a loving homage to the genre is therefore limited. Quentin Tarantino might adore...
Bottle Shock
When it comes to movies about wine, you have high-end vintages like "Sideways," and then you have the cheap stuff like "Bottle Shock." Based on a true story but overwritten into a cutesy, contrived mess, "Bottle Shock" is the Two Buck Chuck of wine m...
Pineapple Express
"Pineapple Express" represents significant growth and maturity from the Judd Apatow comedy factory. I realize that sounds incongruous when applied to the guys who brought us immature treats like "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up," but I'm talk...
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
It's not just that "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" is meant for a young female audience, and that this audience does not include me. It's that it's meant for a young female audience that is intimately familiar with the details of the first ...
Swing Vote
There are three different movies crammed into "Swing Vote," which I don't need to tell you is not the best way of doing things. One is an inspiring patriotic comedy along the lines of "Dave," where you come out of it feeling great about the promise o...
Frozen River
For a fictional film, even one based on real-life circumstances, "Frozen River" has surprisingly few false or contrived moments. The dialogue, the emotions, the motivations, and the actions of the characters so closely match what we'd expect from rea...
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
The first problem I have with "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" is that it doesn't have any mummies in it. Oh, sure, there's a back-from-the-dead villain that everyone keeps calling a "mummy." In fact, the word "mummy" is uttered -- usually yel...
Man on Wire (documentary)
August 1974 was a significant month for Richard Nixon, my mother, and the whimsical French artist Philippe Petit. While Nixon was claiming he'd had nothing to do with the Watergate break-in (then resigning because of it on Aug. 8), and while I was pr...
Baghead
After being suffocated by so many well-made but unoriginal independent films at Sundance, "Baghead" is like a blast of fresh air. It has warmth and innovation, and the mischievous good sense to subtly make fun of the type of film that it is.
And ...
American Teen (documentary)
"American Teen" is a refreshing palate-cleanser after the recent spate of documentaries about war and terrorism. It is also, to my everlasting joy, just as enthralling as any of those more "serious" docs, and more entertaining, funny, and hopeful tha...
The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Like many popular TV shows, "The X-Files" stayed on the air a few years longer than it should have, finally stopping in 2002 even though most of its viewers (and one of its cast members) had long since given up on it. But with the new "X-Files" film,...
Step Brothers
Will Ferrell, his longtime director and writing partner Adam McKay, and their new pal John C. Reilly have made a movie that is basically for their own amusement. It is called "Step Brothers," and while they have graciously permitted it to be screened...
Boy A
The young man sitting in the prison conference room seems perfectly harmless. He has an open smile and a simple, grateful demeanor. You wonder how anyone this meek could have survived in prison. He is being released now, as an adult, after serving se...
The Dark Knight
Saying that "The Dark Knight" is a superhero movie based on a comic book character is like saying "The Godfather" is a crime drama based on a novel: technically accurate yet woefully inadequate.
Christopher Nolan's new adventure, a sequel to his g...
Mamma Mia!
The enormous success of the stage musical "Mamma Mia!" (enthusiasm theirs), which uses ABBA songs as its framework, has always puzzled me. ABBA's songs are catchy, to be sure, and I have several in my iTunes. But they're not exactly deep, and they ce...
Space Chimps
As every schoolchild knows, the world's first astronauts were animals. After all, you can't just go sending humans into the unknown reaches of space! You need to try it out on a monkey first, to make sure it isn't deadly. If it had been around in the...
Garden Party
They say you're supposed to write what you know. The only problem with this system is that sometimes the only things you know are the same things everyone else knows, and so why bother?
I sense that this is the case with Jason Freeland, who wrote...
Journey to the Center of the Earth
If you thought the latest Indiana Jones adventure was implausible, wait till you see "Journey to the Center of the Earth"! It makes "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" look like a documentary. It's fun, though, and a perfectly good way for a family to spe...
Meet Dave
"Meet Dave" is bad, obviously. You can tell from the trailer, and from the fact that it stars Eddie Murphy (in a dual role!), and from its director being Brian Robbins, whose previous crimes include "Hardball," "The Perfect Score," "The Shaggy Dog," ...
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
What is it about me that makes me fail to love the "Hellboy" movies? I liked the first one well enough, albeit unenthusiastically, and now the sequel -- "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" -- strikes me as nothing more than moderately enjoyable, occasional...
Kabluey
Independent films about 30-year-old boy-men who don't know what to do with their lives are as plentiful as snowflakes at Sundance. So when someone finds a way to freshen up the old format, as Scott Prendergast does in "Kabluey," you take notice.
"...
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (documentary)
Hunter S. Thompson approached life like one long, extended suicide attempt, so no one was terribly surprised when he finally finished the job in 2005 at age 67. Least surprised were his family members, who were home with him when he pulled the trigge...
The Wackness
A more apt title for "The Wackness" would be "The Wackiness," as in, "Look at all the wackiness we've manufactured for you!" Just as the lily-white central character tries desperately to come off as "street" and "hip" while simultaneously trying to l...
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
You watch that Abigail Breslin. At 12 years old, she's already been nominated for an Oscar (for "Little Miss Sunshine"), and "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" proves it was no fluke. She's the real deal -- naturally charismatic, instantly likable, an...
Tell No One (French)
Except for being in French, "Tell No One" is indiscernible from a mid-range American crime thriller, and it's even based on an American novel, by Harlan Coben. It has twists and revelations and coincidences and some vivid chase sequences, making use ...
Hancock
Combining Will Smith -- Mr. July, the Biggest Movie Star in the World -- with the highly lucrative superhero genre is a no-brainer. The only question about "Hancock" is what took them so long?
Hancock is no ordinary superhero, though, and the mov...
Wanted
If Timur Bekmambetov is the Russian David Fincher, then "Wanted" is his "Fight Club": bloody, brutal, funny, lightly satirical, and all about a nobody who shakes himself from his reverie and becomes a real man. There aren't many deep themes here (not...
WALL-E
Pixar's latest computer-animated masterpiece, "WALL-E," is so full of technical innovation, risk-taking, and awe-inspiring imagination that you can get wrapped up in those elements and forget how flat-out entertaining it is. Or, conversely, you could...
Expired
We are supposed to hate the male lead in "Expired." He's a jerk, and he's dating the protagonist, a mousy, harmless woman who has done nothing to deserve such treatment. And yes, I hate him, so mission accomplished. But I dislike the movie, too, beca...
Get Smart
The slick new version of the dusty 1960s television comedy "Get Smart" is one of the better TV adaptations to come along in recent years. It's faithful to the original without being overly reverential, it modernizes the premise without mocking it, an...
The Love Guru
In the six years since "Austin Powers in Goldmember," the last film that Mike Myers conceived and headlined, his obsession with penises has not diminished. If anything, as "The Love Guru" demonstrates, the obsession has only grown stronger. Also espe...
The Foot Fist Way
One joke in "The Foot Fist Way" can give you a good idea of what you're in for. Fred (Danny R. McBride), the belligerent white-trash Tae Kwon Do instructor who is the film's protagonist, is sitting down to dinner with his skanky wife and a neighbor c...
The Incredible Hulk
"The Incredible Hulk" offers the quantity of action that many people felt was lacking in Ang Lee's more contemplative 2003 treatment of the big green freak, and it does it without skimping on the other necessary elements. I thought "The Hulk" was an ...
The Happening
When you make a movie about a killer whose identity is a mystery, it is common to have the actual killer be a suspect at some point early on, only to have him exonerated and other avenues pursued. Then, when it turns out he really was the bad guy all...
Visioneers
Most of the individual components of "Visioneers" are not new, nor are the film's ideas particularly deep. Yet somehow the combination, written and directed by brothers Jared and Brandon Drake -- in their first film, amazingly -- feels fresh and invi...
Your Name Here
Your enjoyment of "Your Name Here" might depend on your tolerance for mind-bending narratives and acid-trip weirdness. Mine is low, I'll tell you that up front. But "Your Name Here" deserves credit for being different, and Bill Pullman's central perf...
Happy Birthday Harris Malden
If a comedy troupe like Broken Lizard or The Whitest Kids U Know had made "Lars and the Real Girl," it might have turned out like "Happy Birthday Harris Malden," a sweet, funny, and very odd comedy about growing up and accepting reality. It's the wor...
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Adam Sandler has entered a new era of social consciousness and mature thought. Granted, he demonstrates this with jokes about sex and poop, but nonetheless, the ideas are there. First he starred in the post-9/11 drama "Reign over Me," then in last ye...
The Promotion
The only problem with "The Promotion" is that its premise of two supermarket assistant managers competing for the same job sounds formulaic. It doesn't help that the awful, similarly themed "Employee of the Month" still lurks in audiences' memories. ...
Mongol (Mongolian)
Am I the only one who gets Genghis Khan confused with Attila the Hun? They're both military leaders who conquered vast territories hundreds of years ago and are viewed as either brutal killers or heroic commanders, depending on who you ask. (Quick: W...
Kung Fu Panda
As with all comics, Jack Black's antics are a matter of taste. Even those of us who find him funny may occasionally grow weary of him, particularly given that no matter what the role, he always basically plays himself. That's true in "Kung Fu Panda,"...
Stuck
In 2001, a drunken Texas woman struck a homeless man with her car, then drove home with the victim still alive and lodged in her windshield. (Here's a Wikipedia summary of the incident.) Rather than call an ambulance, she let the man die in her garag...
The Strangers
True story: I sat near the front of the theater for "The Strangers," close enough that the screen filled my entire field of vision. During several key moments, I noticed that I was pressing myself into my chair, trying to back away from what was happ...
Savage Grace
There is nothing very savage or very graceful about "Savage Grace," a lurid, faux-sophisticated telling of a true story about lurid, faux-sophisticated millionaires. It is very pretty, and it feigns elegance well, but it is tawdry and shallow.
If ...
Sex and the City
I never watched HBO's "Sex and the City" because it didn't appeal to me. It seemed to be about four superficial, materialistic women who pranced around New York talking about men and shoes. My interest was diminished further by the way so many people...
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
It's been 19 years since we last saw Indiana Jones, the famed ark-finding, sacred-stone-returning, Hitler's-autograph-collecting archeologist played by Harrison Ford in three 1980s films. A commensurate amount of time has passed in the new adventure,...
Padre Nuestro (Spanish)
Two Mexico teenage boys sneak across the border and up to New York in "Padre Nuestro." One is looking for his father; the other is looking for easy money. A case of stolen identity ensues, and the old man – a dishwasher at a Manhattan restaurant – slowly warms to the son he never knew … who isn't actually his son. First-time writer/director Christopher Zalla gets very good performances from his mostly unknown actors, and the screenplay is mostly free of clichés and false sentiment. But the film is ultimately too bleak, almost hopeless, with messy emotions and motivations that don't resonate the way Zalla wants them to.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
A few things have changed since the first "Chronicles of Narnia" film arrived on the scene. In the sequel, "Prince Caspian," the principal actors are a little older and more proficient. The director, Andrew Adamson, seems more confident; the action s...
The Fall
When Tarsem Singh's "The Cell" was released in 2000, I spent most of my review talking about the way it looked, from the cinematography to the costume design. Eight years later, Tarsem (he's just going by his first name now) has finally made his seco...
Speed Racer
When "The Matrix" burst onto the scene in 1999, its creators, brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski, were hailed as geniuses whose advancements in special-effects technology would forever change the way movies were made. That has proven to be true, but i...
What Happens in Vegas
This week's New York-based romantic comedy in which two sworn enemies fall in love after being forced to work on something together is "What Happens in Vegas." The film is mechanical and obvious ("comfortable and familiar," a more optimistic critic m...
The Favor
In the spirit of "Broken Flowers" comes "The Favor," a quiet, methodical drama with no wasted scenes or dialogue, a film that moves as calmly and rationally as its main character.
It's not about a man searching for a long-lost son (like "Broken Fl...
Made of Honor
"Made of Honor" is a terrible romantic comedy, and heaven knows I don't go into romantic comedies with high expectations. The best I can usually hope for is a few funny lines, some charming performances, maybe a slight twist on the usual formula. "Ma...
Redbelt
Anton Chekhov's rule of drama was that if you introduce a gun as a prop in Act I, it needs to be fired before the end of the play. David Mamet, a playwright and filmmaker who knows as much about the intricacies of drama as Chekhov did, reverses that ...
