Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) | "
Shortchanging traditional animation by literalizing it while robbing actors of their full range of facial expressiveness, the performance-capture technique favored by director Robert Zemeckis looks more than ever like the emperor's new clothes." — Variety Posted Nov 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 71%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
Director Spike Jonze's sharp instincts and vibrant visual style can't quite compensate for the lack of narrative eventfulness that increasingly bogs down this bright-minded picture." — Variety Posted Oct 12, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 4%
| The Mod Squad (1999) | "
This latest bigscreen retrofitting of a vintage TV series (1968-73) feels like the most shameless effort yet in the renewed exploitation of the youth market." — Variety Posted Sep 9, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 84%
| The Road (2009) | "
Except for the physical aspects of this bleak odyssey by a father and son through a post-apocalyptic landscape, this long-delayed production falls dispiritingly short on every front." — Variety Posted Sep 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 13%
| Spread (2009) | "
The pic reveals the palpable pressure to resolve matters pressing heavily on a screenwriter who opted for an unsatisfactory shortcut to an ending." — Variety Posted Aug 13, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 55%
| Orphan (2009) | "
Teasingly enjoyable rubbish through the first hour, Orphan becomes genuine trash during its protracted second half." — Variety Posted Jul 22, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 8%
| Burn Hollywood Burn (1997) | "
A caustic but under-funny "expose" of the venality of the motion picture business." — Variety Posted Jul 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 15%
| The Ugly Truth (2009) | "
It’s an odd, far-fetched twist on the Pygmalion story, with the modern angle of poking holes in political correctness, one that might have been made marginally convincing by a dollop of backstory or psychology." — Variety Posted Jul 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Brüno (2009) | "
There is also a pronounced nasty streak to the innumerable provocations staged by the title character that curdles the laughs and wears out the flamboyant Austrian fashionista's welcome within the picture's brief 82-minute running time." — Variety Posted Jun 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Public Enemies (2009) | "
Overall impact is muted. Oddly, too, the film is somewhat shortchanged by its great star, Johnny Depp, who disappointingly has chosen to play Dillinger as self-consciously cool rather than earthy and gregarious." — Variety Posted Jun 25, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 48%
| Antichrist (2009) | "
Lars von Trier cuts a big fat art-film fart with "Antichrist." As if deliberately courting critical abuse, the Danish bad boy densely packs this theological-psychological horror opus with grotesque, self-consciously provocative images." — Variety Posted May 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 51%
| Taking Woodstock (2009) | "
A sort of let's-put-on-a-show summer-camp lark for director Ang Lee after the dramatic rigors of "Brokeback Mountain" and "Lust, Caution," the picture serves up intermittent pleasures but is too raggedy and laid-back for its own good." — Variety Posted May 16, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 68%
| Tetro (2009) | "
The angst-ridden treatment of Oedipal issues makes the picture play out like a passably talented imitation of O'Neill, Williams, Miller and Inge, and thus it feels like the pale product of an over-tilled field." — Variety Posted May 14, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 27%
| Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) | "
A second-rate sex farce...mostly clunky and vaguely unsavory." — Variety Posted Apr 27, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 40%
| The Limits of Control (2009) | "
It just feels tired and recycled -- the referencing of Rimbaud and Blake, the flagrant hipsterism that here falsifies rather than refreshes...the above-it-all attitude toward connecting on a human level." — Variety Posted Apr 23, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 28%
| Fast & Furious (2009) | "
By far the weakest entry of the four." — Variety Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 16%
| The Scarlet Letter (1995) | "
A very '90s take on a 1660s tale written in 1850, as a picture of early colonial life it's about as convincing as Pocahontas." — Variety Posted Mar 26, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 14%
| Vegas Vacation (1997) | "
A tepid fourth entry in the popular 1980s series that is decidedly showing its age." — Variety Posted Mar 26, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 8%
| Intersection (1994) | "
This very loose adaptation (acknowledgement of the sources is buried in the end credits) attempts to goose things up here and there, but original's essentially meditative nature is left quite unfulfilled by the new approach and glamour cast." — Variety Posted Mar 26, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 72%
| Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) | "
A host of minor issues, none of them too debilitating on its own, combine to create a feeling of moderate underachievement." — Variety Posted Mar 23, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 82%
| I Love You, Man (2009) | "
Pic never surmounts a deeply lame central premise that makes most of the action seem fraudulent and thoroughly unnecessary." — Variety Posted Mar 16, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 85%
| Platoon (1986) | "
The artistic veneer Stone applies, along with the simpy narration provided for Sheen in the way of letters to his grandmother, detract significantly from the work's immediacy." — Variety Posted Feb 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 16%
| Crossing Over (2009) | "
An overweeningly deterministic mosaic of U.S. immigration case studies." — Variety Posted Feb 17, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 0%
| Polanski (2009) | "
This Friday the 13th Los Angeles vanity release isn't even fun in a bad-movie way." — Variety Posted Feb 13, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 23%
| Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) | "
Strains far too hard for comedy that seldom erupts with full force and inevitably betrays a free-spending mindset that now feels gone with the wind." — Variety Posted Feb 13, 2009 |
Rotten
| N/A | Missing Person (2009) | "
A drab, pale-looking affair without a trace of visual style, this cross-country pursuit yarn fights a losing battle to sustain viewer attention via narrative alone, so much does it flounder for lack of imagistic flair." — Variety Posted Feb 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 58%
| The International (2009) | "
The International scampers all over the place, but it's alternately frantic and a little slack, with a hole in the middle where some interesting characters ought to be." — Variety Posted Feb 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 60%
| Sabrina (1995) | "
This new Sabrina is more fizzle than fizz." — Variety Posted Feb 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 89%
| Adventureland (2009) | "
Adventureland unspools as a rather ordinary account of youthful summer misadventures that goes down easily thanks to a sparky cast." — Variety Posted Jan 21, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 12%
| Bride Wars (2009) | "
A shrill, mechanical comedy dedicated to the proposition that a wedding that doesn't take place at the Plaza Hotel is scarcely worth having at all." — Variety Posted Jan 8, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 27%
| Seven Pounds (2008) | "
Intricately constructed so as to infuriate anyone predominantly guided by rationality and intellect." — Variety Posted Dec 17, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 61%
| Valkyrie (2008) | "
Bryan Singer's long-awaited account of the near-miss assassination of Adolf Hitler by a ring of rebel German army officers on July 20, 1944, has visual splendor galore, but is a cold work lacking in the requisite tension and suspense." — Variety Posted Dec 11, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 21%
| The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) | "
This botched remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still seriously dishonors the seriously fine 1951 sci-fi landmark on which it's based." — Variety Posted Dec 11, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 26%
| Four Christmases (2008) | "
[An] oddly misanthropic, occasionally amusing but thoroughly cheerless holiday attraction." — Variety Posted Nov 24, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 56%
| Defiance (2008) | "
A potentially exceptional story is told in a flatly unexceptional manner in Defiance." — Variety Posted Nov 10, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 77%
| A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007) | "
A quiet work with Ozu-like structure and concerns, but remains more an intellectual exercise than one from the heart." — Variety Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 55%
| Twister (1996) | "
Even more than with most of Michael Crichton's concoctions, this one conveys the overwhelming impression of a mechanical entertainment, a very high concept in which the characters and their problems seem like utterly arbitrary creations." — Variety Posted Oct 18, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 60%
| W. (2008) | "
The film is unable to achieve any aims higher than as a sort of engaging pop-history pageant and amateur, if not inapt, psychological evaluation, due to the unavoidable lack of perspective and a final act that has yet to be written." — Variety Posted Oct 7, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 13%
| An American Carol (2008) | "
Poorly made indie production has a script that feels like a list of ripostes collected over the last several years to liberal criticisms of the U.S.: The whole enterprise feels far more agenda- than entertainment-driven." — Variety Posted Oct 6, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 51%
| Body of Lies (2008) | "
Neither the location-based verisimilitude of Ridley Scott's shooting style nor the estimable Middle East expertise of source-material author David Ignatius can disguise Body of Lies as anything other than the contrived phony-baloney it is." — Variety Posted Oct 3, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 37%
| How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) | "
How to lose friends and alienate audiences is the lesson taught by this cleverly titled but noxious British comedy." — Variety Posted Oct 1, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 34%
| Miracle at St. Anna (2008) | "
Clocking in at 160 minutes, this is a sloppy stew in which the ingredients of battle action, murder mystery, little-kid sentiment and history lesson don’t mix well." — Variety Posted Sep 25, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 34%
| Girl 6 (1996) | "
[Randle] holds the film together as best she can with her luminous presence and dignity, but can't supply the lacking subtext, past history and motivation." — Variety Posted Sep 23, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 35%
| The Lucky Ones (2008) | "
It's hard to find the genuine heartfelt moments in The Lucky Ones, a story about three Iraq War soldiers on a brief road trip back in the U.S., under the clutter of narrative contrivances and coincidences." — Variety Posted Sep 16, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 44%
| Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) | "
While there are pleasures to be had from watching so many grand actresses strut their stuff, the fact is that the overriding preoccupation here rests with surface impressions rather than psychological probity." — Variety Posted Sep 5, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 58%
| Flash of Genius (2008) | "
Very small potatoes in the cinematic annals of inspiring little-guy-fights-the-system melodramas, to the point that it's a wonder it was thought to be strong bigscreen material." — Variety Posted Sep 4, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 71%
| The Fifth Element (1997) | "
A hodgepodge of elements that don't comfortably coalesce." — Variety Posted Sep 4, 2008 |
Rotten
| Rotten 41%
| Losing Isaiah (1995) | "
The material is emotionally wrenching, but the actors play sociopolitical totems more than flesh-and-blood characters." — Variety Posted Sep 3, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 84%
| Anastasia (1997) | "
An ambitious, serious but not particularly stimulating musical feature that unconvincingly attempts to graft warm and cuddly family-film motifs onto turbulent aspects of modern history and mythology." — Variety Posted Sep 1, 2008 |
Rotten
| Fresh 87%
| Mulan (1998) | "
Goes about halfway toward setting new boundaries for Disney's, and the industry's, animated features, but doesn't go far enough." — Variety Posted Sep 1, 2008 |
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