|
2/4
|
23%
|
The Samaritan (2012) |
"
It's not honest with its people, or its plot. And the only ones it really cheats are audience members."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 18, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
24%
|
What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012) |
"
Director Kirk Jones and screenwriters Shauna Cross and Heather Hach consistently fall back on corny music and slow-motion to try to get laughs. Very little of this movie feels risky, or even frisky."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 18, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
47%
|
Lovely Molly (2012) |
"
Sanchez ... is not making his debut here, and after more than a decade he should be willing to do something besides jerking the camera around and making noises offscreen."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 18, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
83%
|
Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog (2012) |
"
It's a wonderful film, though, which is - oddly - only now getting a very limited release, eight years after its Japanese debut."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 17, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
51%
|
Hysteria (2012) |
"
Gyllenhaal ... is fresh and fierce and delightful. Too bad the entire movie hadn't simply concentrated on her, and eliminated all the rest of this awkward fumbling around."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 17, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
35%
|
Battleship (2012) |
"
As big, dumb summer movies go ... this is just another big, dumb summer movie. And one that makes you feel slightly dumber for having watched it."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 17, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
61%
|
The Dictator (2012) |
"
For once, Baron Cohen has a real script and a supporting cast as skilled at improv as he is. And those complementary elements make a difference."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 16, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
——
|
I Killed The Prom Queen - Sleepless Nights And City Lights (2009) |
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 12, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
41%
|
Dark Shadows (2012) |
"
Clearly, they made the movie they wanted to make. It's just not the movie this "Dark Shadows" fan hoped to see."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 11, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
66%
|
God Bless America (2012) |
"
The film features elaborate (and spot-on) parodies of mean-girl reality shows, YouTube nonsense and fatuous news reports but the people are thin and the plot meanders a bit."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 11, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
94%
|
Sleepless Night (2012) |
"
The sort of stripped-down, Francophone picture that's been spoiling American action fans over the last few years. There are no Cuisinarted fight scenes, no pauses for awkward romantic subplots."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 11, 2012
|
|
1/4
|
28%
|
Girl In Progress (2012) |
"
It never gives us a character we truly care about, or a consistent reason for watching."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 11, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
41%
|
Where Do We Go Now? (2012) |
"
Making a movie about sectarian violence in which the local religious figures are comically powerless, at worst, seems like too easy a path to take. Nothing springs from nothing."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 11, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
71%
|
The Road (2012) |
"
This philosophical film helps elevate the film above the usual scared-teenager shocker although, sometimes, the film ignores the bread-and-butter demands of the genre."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 11, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
76%
|
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) |
"
It's hard to complain too much when your leads are Dench and Smith, Nighy and Wilkinson - all giving an actor's master class in the power of doing just enough."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
93%
|
Marvel's The Avengers (2012) |
"
After years of buildup, it's a reward to patient audiences who've been waiting for this team-up for years."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted May 1, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
62%
|
The Five-Year Engagement (2012) |
"
A fun, entertaining picture, and another credit to Segel's rising career as a writer and star."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 28, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
86%
|
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) |
"
The filmmakers have said they are already dreaming up a sequel. They needn't hurry. Whatever treasures these pirates have are well buried."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 28, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
21%
|
The Raven (2012) |
"
It lingers intolerably on some inessential scenes, rushes through others, and fails to provide any motivation either for Poe's devoted (albeit fictional) love, or the film's archvillain."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 28, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
55%
|
Safe (2012) |
"
Yeah, "Safe" is a long way from perfect. But rented, in a few months, it'll go great with a six-pack and a hold-the-anchovies special."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 27, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
88%
|
Bernie (2012) |
"
Linklater clearly has no idea why the man did what he did. But then, Bernie probably didn't either."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 27, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
75%
|
Sound of My Voice (2012) |
"
None of this really adds up to much beyond an hour-and-a-half or so of vague doubletalk, arbitrary decisions and increasingly annoying frustration."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 27, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
20%
|
The Lucky One (2012) |
"
There's not much to the movie besides handsome sets, sun-dappled photography and a plot as predictable as the verse in a Hallmark card."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 20, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
52%
|
Think Like a Man (2012) |
"
Yes, this movie urges women to "Think Like a Man." But it thinks like an infomercial - and for a pretty old-fashioned product."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 20, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
74%
|
Chimpanzee (2012) |
"
We don't see footage of different chimps and have to pretend it's the same; this is one fellow, from one clan, trying to survive."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 20, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
22%
|
Darling Companion (2012) |
"
It feels like a film that got stuck at the pitch stage, and never quite got turned into a real screenplay."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 20, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
94%
|
Marley (2012) |
"
It's hard to imagine audiences who don't know much about the man sticking around for more than a few minutes of this. And they're the ones who need to know about him most of all."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 20, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
36%
|
Lockout (2012) |
"
The tag-team of filmmakers seems to have only two ideas - having stupendously ugly characters shove their mugs into the camera, or staging action sequences so dizzily you have no idea what's going on."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 13, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
47%
|
The Three Stooges (2012) |
"
If this is a tribute, it's a crass and clumsy one."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 13, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
90%
|
The Cabin in the Woods (2012) |
"
"The Cabin in the Woods" gets at the story underneath the story, and the reason behind the clichés."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 13, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
96%
|
Monsieur Lazhar (2012) |
"
The film, alas, seems determined to be as careful, as gentle, as Lazhar himself."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 13, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
65%
|
Keyhole (2012) |
"
Yes, sometimes the whole thing comes together like a poem or an early surrealist experiment. But too often, it just seems like a jumble of fantasies and daydreams."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 7, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
43%
|
American Reunion (2012) |
"
None of it makes much of an impression, although there are a few nice and surprisingly heartfelt moments around the edges."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 6, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
76%
|
Damsels in Distress (2012) |
"
Maybe it would have been better in black-and-white."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 6, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
11%
|
ATM (2012) |
"
None of it builds to anything or engenders any real suspense."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 6, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
68%
|
The Hunter (2012) |
"
Mostly this is just too mild, too quiet, too distant. It tracks its target. But it never quite manages to get it in its sites."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Apr 6, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
50%
|
Mirror Mirror (2012) |
"
The dwarves provide wonderful fun, Singh's visuals have true magic and Alan Menken's score is charming."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 30, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
33%
|
Intruders (2012) |
"
This is ... an intelligent, scary little movie. Because it's smart enough to know what's really scary is what's inside us."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 30, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
54%
|
Bully (2001) |
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 30, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
87%
|
Bully (2012) |
"
The access varies widely, there's far too much music telling us what to feel, and at the end its focus begins to drift. If it at least gets people talking, though, that's a good thing."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 30, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
82%
|
Goon (2012) |
"
All it wants is slapstick violence and "Slap Shot" profanity. And it delivers both - albeit not much else."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 30, 2012
|
|
2/4
|
83%
|
The Raid: Redemption (2012) |
"
The entire thing is so vague, at times it feels like a sequel to a movie we never saw; surely, there's something we're missing here, right, some backstory we're supposed to have?"
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 23, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
79%
|
The Deep Blue Sea (2012) |
"
Try to stay on board. Whenever it does briefly slip away, it carries you along on a wave."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 23, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
48%
|
Brake (2012) |
"
The situation itself is simply too absurd for us to accept, right from the start. And the more it goes on, the harder it is to stay onboard."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 21, 2012
|
|
2.5/4
|
85%
|
The Hunger Games (2012) |
"
Forced to finally show us what Collins mostly left to our imaginations, it often falters."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 20, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
96%
|
The Kid with a Bike (2012) |
"
As is usual in their films, the Dardennes remain both deeply interested and carefully objective. The photography and editing are unfussy and unhurried. There is no attempt to do anything but present these small fictions as simple fact."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 16, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
77%
|
Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2012) |
"
"Jeff, Who Lives at Home" is [the Duplass brothers'] best yet."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 16, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
85%
|
21 Jump Street (2012) |
"
A raucous, raunchy comedy."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 16, 2012
|
|
1.5/4
|
44%
|
Casa de mi padre (2012) |
"
A product as cheap, empty and worth of a good beating as a piñata."
—
Newark Star-Ledger
Posted Mar 16, 2012
|
62%
——
97%
