Rotten
| Rotten 30%
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) | "
New Moon offers few of the juicy, go-for-broke romantic pleasures of its predecessor, and the movie is so badly shaped that it's hard not to blame Weitz as a director." — Salon.com Posted Nov 19, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 59%
| Pirate Radio (2009) | "
Despite Curtis' bumbling, Pirate Radio manages to stay afloat bravely enough -- at least until the climax, which comes off as a confused marriage between Top of the Pops and Titanic." — Salon.com Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| 2012 (2009) | "
The effects are expensive-looking and impressive enough while you're watching them, although whatever awe they inspire doesn't last long: When you've seen one Washington Monument fall to bits, you've seen them all." — Salon.com Posted Nov 12, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) | "
There's no doubt we need more movies for grown-ups, with jokes that don't hit us over the head, but The Men Who Stare at Goats doesn't fit the bill. At best, it might hypnotize you into a stupor." — Salon.com Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| The Box (2009) | "
Kelly tries to gather so many ideas under this movie's umbrella: He has strong ideas about the necessity of compassion in everyday life. He wonders what awaits us after death. But he can't flesh out all of these ideas properly, or even haphazardly." — Salon.com Posted Nov 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009) | "
Cirque du Freak is disjointed and disorganized, and it meanders when it needs to gallop." — Salon.com Posted Oct 23, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 70%
| Where the Wild Things Are (2009) | "
Jonze's ideas, visual and otherwise, spill out in a faux-philosophical ramble that isn't nearly as deep as he thinks it is; at best, it's a scrambled tone poem. Even the look of the picture becomes tiresome after a while." — Salon.com Posted Oct 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 12%
| Couples Retreat (2009) | "
Couples Retreat is neither funny nor honest. The exact opposite of a retreat, it's merely exhausting." — Salon.com Posted Oct 9, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 75%
| Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) | "
This is a love story, all right, but it has less to do with the flaws of capitalism than it does with Moore's unwavering fondness for the sound of his own voice, and for what he perceives as his own vast cleverness." — Salon.com Posted Sep 23, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 45%
| Jennifer's Body (2009) | "
The movie substitutes calculation for brains, and the filmmakers seem to think we'll all be too stupid to notice." — Salon.com Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 18%
| Love Happens (2009) | "
A limp romantic drama that occasionally lifts its drowsy head to attempt a wan smile, a picture that starts out being harmlessly dull and ends, somehow, in a place that feels insultingly manipulative." — Salon.com Posted Sep 18, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 6%
| Whiteout (2009) | "
What's missing from Whiteout is the pervasive sense of paranoia that you'd expect, or hope for, from a thriller set on the coldest and most isolated land mass on the planet." — Salon.com Posted Sep 11, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 6%
| All About Steve (2009) | "
A romantic comedy so lunkheaded and ill-conceived that it makes your average, idiotic Kate Hudson-Matthew McConaughey outing look like the reincarnation of Hepburn and Grant." — Salon.com Posted Sep 4, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 49%
| Taking Woodstock (2009) | "
It's harmless enough as a snapshot of a young man's awakening to the grand possibilities of adult life, but not particularly effective at capturing the spirit, the thrill or even the mud of this culturally monumental event." — Salon.com Posted Aug 28, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 38%
| The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) | "
There's not much [McAdams] or Bana can do to rescue this dreary piece of romantic hooey." — Salon.com Posted Aug 14, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 68%
| Funny People (2009) | "
Funny People is an ambitious, misshapen picture that feels like two, maybe even three, separate movies uncomfortably jammed into one." — Salon.com Posted Jul 31, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 15%
| The Ugly Truth (2009) | "
Until that final, inevitable kiss, we have to listen to them, and the clatter of their crude, brainless exchanges is unbearable." — Salon.com Posted Jul 24, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 15%
| I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009) | "
I Love You, Beth Cooper moves along, taking two steps backward into crassness for every clever or just plain sweet moment it offers." — Salon.com Posted Jul 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 67%
| Public Enemies (2009) | "
Ultimately an odd blend of frustrating and satisfying." — Salon.com Posted Jul 1, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 16%
| I Hate Valentine's Day (2009) | "
I Hate Valentine's Day is a horror show masquerading as a romantic comedy. Maybe Vardalos is just in the wrong line of work." — Salon.com Posted Jun 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 54%
| Cheri (2009) | "
Chéri is a perfect example of a movie that gets many of the details right and the vibe all wrong." — Salon.com Posted Jun 26, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 19%
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) | "
Bay seems to think that just showing us a bunch of brightly clashing metallic limbs (accompanied by lots of noise) is enough to make us faint in our seats with excitement." — Salon.com Posted Jun 24, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 47%
| Whatever Works (2009) | "
A belabored trifle that's occasionally amusing but often just bewildering, beginning with the movie's intentionally outlandish setup." — Salon.com Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 15%
| Year One (2009) | "
It ambles along uncertainly, hobbled by the lack of chemistry between its two lead actors, and by gags that either try too hard or suffer from being barely there." — Salon.com Posted Jun 19, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 66%
| Away We Go (2009) | "
The main sin of Away We Go is simple dullness." — Salon.com Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 25%
| Land of the Lost (2009) | "
Land of the Lost is harmless enough. It just isn't, with the exception of a few odd air pockets, particularly funny." — Salon.com Posted Jun 5, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 98%
| Up (2009) | "
Its charms appear to have been applied with surgical precision; by the end, I felt expertly sutured, but not much else." — Salon.com Posted May 29, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 32%
| Terminator Salvation (2009) | "
Terminator Salvation is so programmed, so impersonal, that it practically dares you to warm to its characters." — Salon.com Posted May 21, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 45%
| Management (2009) | "
Management is ultimately undone by its own bland idiosyncrasies. It's nothing but a mismanaged opportunity." — Salon.com Posted May 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 36%
| Angels & Demons (2009) | "
Ron Howard's follow-up to the stiff, stately 2006 The Da Vinci Code, might have been classy, entertaining junk -- if only it were entertaining." — Salon.com Posted May 15, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 36%
| X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) | "
The problem with Wolverine isn't that the mythology is detailed and potentially confusing. The bigger issue is that "Wolverine" is so uninvolving that you might not care whether you remember what happened 10 minutes ago." — Salon.com Posted Apr 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 19%
| Obsessed (2009) | "
Obsessed takes far too long to get cooking, and it works so hard at not being exploitation that it loses sight of its reasons for existing in the first place." — Salon.com Posted Apr 27, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 63%
| Crank High Voltage (2009) | "
In Crank: High Voltage, Statham just looks miserable, as if appearing in this lousy picture just sucked all the heart right out of him." — Salon.com Posted Apr 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 44%
| Hannah Montana The Movie (2009) | "
Assorted conflicts and adventures ensue, and the movie overall is painless if not exactly electrifying." — Salon.com Posted Apr 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 50%
| Observe and Report (2009) | "
The whole thing is calibrated to wow us with its weirdness, even as it assumes an air of 'Who, me?' guilelessness. I've seen slick, glossy Hollywood thrillers made with less knowing calculation." — Salon.com Posted Apr 10, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 28%
| Fast & Furious (2009) | "
Fast & Furious spends a lot of time advertising how exciting it is, without actually being exciting." — Salon.com Posted Apr 3, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 72%
| Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) | "
MvA isn't, and isn't pretending to be, as ambitious a project as Pixar's almost universally lauded Wall-E was. But does it have to feel like something that's just rolled off a conveyor belt, made according to an exacting but dull set of specifications?" — Salon.com Posted Mar 26, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 33%
| Knowing (2009) | "
If Alex Proyas' Knowing were reasonably entertaining -- instead of just dour, pointless and tedious -- it would be a camp classic." — Salon.com Posted Mar 23, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 65%
| Duplicity (2009) | "
I started out loving Duplicity; by the end, I wanted to strangle it." — Salon.com Posted Mar 20, 2009 |
Rotten
| Fresh 72%
| Sunshine Cleaning (2009) | "
Although Adams and Blunt work hard at giving dimension to their characters, they can't overcome the fact that the story is essentially a greatest hits of family trauma." — Salon.com Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 4%
| Miss March (2009) | "
Miss March is, to use the vernacular of the escapist moviegoer, the biggest pile of crap I've seen in ages." — Salon.com Posted Mar 13, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 16%
| Crossing Over (2009) | "
An interesting failure, a movie that at least strives to be about something, entangling itself with the question of what it means to be an American -- or, more specifically, what it means to deserve to live here." — Salon.com Posted Feb 27, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 28%
| Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail (2009) | "
As an alternative to the Hollywood mainstream, which doesn't provide many good roles for African-American actors, Perry's movies are at least a stopgap solution. It's just too bad they're not better." — Salon.com Posted Feb 23, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 13%
| The Pink Panther 2 (2009) | "
What is our reward for the collective effort of this prestigious assembly? One of the most dreadfully unnecessary movies in recent memory." — Salon.com Posted Feb 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 44%
| He's Just Not That Into You (2009) | "
Somewhere along the way, He's Just Not That Into You starts taking all the wrong forks in the road of romance and ends up nowhere." — Salon.com Posted Feb 6, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 32%
| The Uninvited (2009) | "
A horror-thriller that's neither horrifying nor thrilling." — Salon.com Posted Jan 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 18%
| New in Town (2009) | "
[A] drearily cheerful little picture that isn't nearly as funny or as heartwarming -- or even as topical, given the economic climate -- as it thinks it is." — Salon.com Posted Jan 30, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 39%
| Inkheart (2009) | "
Over and over again, characters in Inkheart wax eloquent on the power of books. But there's nothing in the movie as haunting or as compelling as the sound they make when they speak for themselves." — Salon.com Posted Jan 23, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 12%
| Bride Wars (2009) | "
Even if you can get past the boneheaded premise, the picture feels halfhearted in its construction." — Salon.com Posted Jan 9, 2009 |
Rotten
| Rotten 15%
| The Spirit (2008) | "
The style is willing. But the spirit is weak." — Salon.com Posted Dec 29, 2008 |
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