Peter Howell Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Peter Howell

Peter Howell

Agrees with the Tomatometer 78% of the time.

Publications:: Toronto Star
Critics' Group:: Broadcast Film Critics Association, Toronto Film Critics Association

Total Reviews:: 1376

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Showing 1 - 50 of 1376

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
	100%	Moonrise Kingdom (2012)	" A literate, knowing and sweet-hearted reverie about adolescence, that strange gap between childhood and adulthood. It's beautifully rendered by a filmmaker very much in touch with his inner rebel kid." — Toronto Star Posted May 16, 2012
1/4	41%	Dark Shadows (2012)	" Stumbles blindly along with Barnabas for most of its overlong 113 minutes, leaving viewers in the dark as to its intentions." — Toronto Star Posted May 10, 2012
3/4	75%	Sound of My Voice (2012)	" Sound of My Voice grounds its science fiction in scarily effective "what ifs" that don't require a light year's stretch of the imagination." — Toronto Star Posted May 10, 2012
3/4	93%	Headhunters (2012)	" That's some good acting by Hennie, but it's also good writing by co-scribes Lars Gudmestad and Ulf Ryberg. They freshen up familiar caper and thriller tropes, adapting the bestselling prose Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo." — Toronto Star Posted May 3, 2012
3.5/4	93%	Marvel's The Avengers (2012)	" A saga guaranteed to pass muster with the Comic-Con cognoscenti, without forsaking regular popcorn munchers who just hope to see the planet get saved with maximum firepower and a few laughs." — Toronto Star Posted May 2, 2012
1/4	22%	Raven (2012)	— Toronto Star Posted Apr 28, 2012
2/4	81%	Safe (1995)	— Toronto Star Posted Apr 27, 2012
2/4	31%	Detention (2012)	" Neither good enough to impress as a meta mashup of horror and comedy, nor bad enough to hoot and throw popcorn at, it slides into a gray area of unfocused ideas and unrealized potential." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 26, 2012
1/4	21%	The Raven (2012)	" If Edgar Allen Poe were alive today, working as a Hollywood screenwriter (God forbid), I suspect he'd be penning not the abysmal script for The Raven but something called The Fall of the House of Cusack." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 26, 2012
2.5/4	63%	The Five-Year Engagement (2012)	" Engagement gets the most important thing right, which is the lead casting: Segel and Blunt are completely convincing as Tom and Violet, star-crossed lovers. They really do care for each other, but life seems to be conspiring against them." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 26, 2012
2/4	55%	Safe (2012)	" It's not just laziness - although it's a fair cop - that prompts the observation that Safe is both the worst movie title and attitude for Jason Statham at this stage of his career." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 26, 2012
3/4	83%	Comic-Con: Episode IV - A Fan's Hope (2012)	" It's a lot to squeeze into 86 minutes, and Spurlock pulls it all together with infectious brio, making us realize that geeks are people, too, who maybe just dream harder than the rest of us." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 19, 2012
2.5/4	51%	Think Like a Man (2012)	" The script ultimately resorts to just counting off comic beats as it creaks through its unfathomable two-hour running time." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 19, 2012
2.5/4	76%	Damsels in Distress (2012)	" Fortunately, Damsels has an abundance of the erudite zingers that Stillman excels at writing, and that make his elegantly staged works seem like period pieces, even though they're set in modern times." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 19, 2012
2/4	74%	Chimpanzee (2012)	" In seeking to make frothy entertainment out of the growing pains of an orphaned baby chimp named Oscar, with an insipid story and almost mocking narration by Tim Allen, it runs counter to its professed scientific intentions." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 19, 2012
4/4	98%	The Artist (2011)	" You can't fault it as smart entertainment, which eschews parody to make a sincere tribute that also serves as cogent current commentary." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 17, 2012
2/4	47%	The Three Stooges (2012)	" The Three Stooges is moronic, stupid, idiotic entertainment for knuckleheads." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 13, 2012
3/4	90%	The Cabin in the Woods (2012)	" To say that TheCabin in the Woods isn't your average horror movie is like observing that King Kong isn't your average ape." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 12, 2012
3.5/4	64%	Keyhole (2012)	" Count me - and hopefully you - amongst Keyhole's grateful dead." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 12, 2012
2/4	——	Webdultery ()	" Webdultery not only doesn't break new ground with its exploration of digital infidelity; it at times threatens to stray into You've Got Mail territory." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 5, 2012
2.5/4	43%	American Reunion (2012)	" American Reunion, remarkably, might just be the funniest issue yet from the American Pie franchise factory." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 5, 2012
3/4	87%	Bully (2012)	" Hirsch's documentary truly shocks by the two sets of outrageous bureaucrats it exposes: one cowers on-screen, and the other hides in the offices of the MPAA, America's movie censor." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 5, 2012
4/4	88%	Titanic (in 3D) (2012)	" The letdown factor has been most keenly felt in conversions from 2D, but Titanic 3D shows how the ambition can be realized if the will and skill are there. We can only hope that other filmmakers follow Cameron's example." — Toronto Star Posted Apr 3, 2012
2/4	25%	Wrath of the Titans (2012)	" Worthington remains a distinctly humourless hero, which makes you long for the likes of a prime-time Harrison Ford or Arnold Schwarzenegger, who knew how to make a fondue out of cheese." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 30, 2012
	86%	The Forgiveness of Blood (2012)	" A heartbreaking Albanian film that counts the toll a family feud takes on all involved." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 30, 2012
4/4	91%	Footnote (2012)	" Writer/director Joseph Cedar is wise to the comedy of frustration and alert to the tragedy of hubris." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 22, 2012
3.5/4	84%	The Raid: Redemption (2012)	" It's a surge of adrenaline that connects a strong protagonist and story to martial arts moves - traditional Indonesian silat - that are well beyond business as usual." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 22, 2012
3/4	84%	The Hunger Games (2012)	" [It] arrives in theatres ... not only intact, but in command of the essentials of storytelling and characterization. The film deserves the massive success it will surely enjoy." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 20, 2012
2.5/4	91%	Corman's World: Exploits Of A Hollywood Rebel (2011)	" Like many of the 400-odd movies Roger Corman has produced and/or directed, Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel has a title that sizzles over content that merely simmers." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 15, 2012
2/4	55%	Being Flynn (2012)	" Heads downward in every sense of the word." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 15, 2012
3/4	85%	21 Jump Street (2012)	" Tatum and Hill steamroller any misgivings right from the start. They take a comedy connection that seemed doomed to fail - pairing Tatum's hunky command with Hill's nerdy neediness - and make it look like the most natural thing in the world." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 15, 2012
2/4	44%	Casa de mi padre (2012)	" It's audacious, given the huge resistance of Americans to subtitled films. It's also a good idea. If only it were funnier." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 15, 2012
2/4	0%	A Thousand Words (2012)	" Shallow performances, script and direction mute the laughs and the insights in a movie that ultimately doesn't have much to say." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 8, 2012
1/4	52%	John Carter (2012)	" It looks as if Disney simply borrowed and recycled the sets of Prince of Persia and Gladiator, adding leftover props from The Phantom Menace and Cowboys and Aliens." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 8, 2012
2.5/4	42%	Silent House (2012)	" It wouldn't work without the exceptional work of Olsen. Her uneasily captivating performance here could almost be viewed as the "why" prequel to Martha Marcy May Marlene, the other chiller from Sundance 2011 that established her as rising star to watch." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 8, 2012
2.5/4	26%	Project X (2012)	" The parent and homeowner in me were appalled by the debauchery and incredible property damage. The teenage boy in me couldn't help but smirk anyway." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 2, 2012
2.5/4	——	Family Portrait In Black And White ()	" Looks at a Ukrainian family of one single mom and a huge brood of children and finds that love grows exponentially." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 1, 2012
3/4	95%	Undefeated (2012)	" For the most part admirably chooses honest documentation over emotional manipulation." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 1, 2012
3.5/4	93%	Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2012)	" This painstaking but gorgeously realized police procedural by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the Turkish poet of the long take, nods to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West." — Toronto Star Posted Mar 1, 2012
3/4	——	Doppelg�nger Paul ()	" Doppelg�nger Paul is a comedy about modern alienation and loneliness, but also the peculiar vagaries of modern male bonding." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 23, 2012
3/4	76%	Rampart (2012)	" This isn't your average out-of-control character, and Harrelson has to work against a narrowly defined screenplay that is short on specifics." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 23, 2012
3/4	82%	Goon (2012)	" It takes hockey hooliganism to heights not seen since Slap Shot was offending the nation's finger-waggers back in the 1970s." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 23, 2012
3/4	90%	In Darkness (2012)	" In Darkness presents a credible scenario about the effects of desperate times upon the human psyche, and it also shows how base human instinct can nevertheless be elevated." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 16, 2012
2/4	54%	Safe House (2012)	" Washington's Tobin is a pedantic cipher and Reynolds' Weston a dull Dudley Do-Right, and the resulting mix, apart from a few good chases, is bland enough to bottle for Gerber's." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 9, 2012
2.5/4	76%	We Need to Talk About Kevin (2012)	" There's no equivocating ... over the excellence of the acting by Swinton and casting find Ezra Miller" — Toronto Star Posted Feb 9, 2012
2.5/4	85%	Chronicle (2012)	" As yet another found-footage film, Chronicle makes a good argument against further use of this tired conceit." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 3, 2012
2.5/4	74%	Big Miracle (2012)	" It is a whale of a comic tale, if also one overly crowded with characters and incidents." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 2, 2012
3/4	89%	Miss Bala (2012)	" Naranjo is unflinching in his determination not to serve up mindless entertainment." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 2, 2012
2.5/4	65%	The Woman in Black (2012)	" What begins as something akin to Robert Wise's The Haunting becomes something more like James Wan's recent Insidious, which makes The Woman in Black a multi-generational horror." — Toronto Star Posted Feb 2, 2012

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