Critics » Christopher Orr » Rotten
Christopher Orr

Christopher Orr

Agrees with the Tomatometer 81% of the time.

Publications:
L.A. Weekly , The Atlantic , The New Republic
Total Reviews:
229

Worst Reviewed Films

Showing 1 - 50 of 126
Previous | Next
Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
62% Salt (2010) " [T]he limited, forgivable absurdities... gradually give way to a level of pandemic preposterousness that makes Ethan Hunt look like George Smiley." — The Atlantic
Posted Jul 23, 2010
6% The Last Airbender (2010) " [T]he film works so hard to explain its plot developments that it scarcely has any time left over to dramatize them. Exposition has not merely vanquished mimesis, it has burned its homes to the ground and sown salt in its fields. " — The Atlantic
Posted Jul 2, 2010
52% Knight & Day (2010) " By the finale, it's hard to shake the sense that the movie has already expired, and everyone involved [is] just trying to prop it up, "Weekend at Bernie's"-style, long enough to heave it over the 100-minute mark. " — The Atlantic
Posted Jun 25, 2010
27% The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) " A landmark cinematic event in 280 words, or one for every $500,000 of weekend box office." — The New Republic
Posted Nov 24, 2009
39% 2012 (2009) " [J]ust as the cyclones and tsunamis of The Day After Tomorrow ultimately succumbed to a bad case of narrative frostbite, 2012's ludicrous thrills begin burning themselves out by the movie's midpoint." — The New Republic
Posted Nov 13, 2009
89% A Serious Man (2009) " Humor and empathy alike have trouble flourishing in the grim narrative soil the Coens provide, in which every cosmic joke is a black one." — The New Republic
Posted Oct 9, 2009
25% Fame (2009) " Way back in 1980, when the Oscar-winning theme song of the movie Fame declared "I'm gonna live forever," it was easy to believe the lyric was an example of artistic license. Now, it's not so clear." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 25, 2009
42% Jennifer's Body (2009) " [T]here's something a bit sour about the whole enterprise, a lack of fun that becomes more evident as the injuries and indignities piled upon poor Needy accumulate, and gradually crowd out the film's early tongue-in-cheekiness." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 18, 2009
63% Extract (2009) " [Extract] resembles its titular foodstuffs: less a fully realized comedy than the distillation of one. The ingredients are there, and the recipe as well, but Judge evidently forgot that the whole dish still needed cooking." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 4, 2009
34% G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) " Sometimes, a film defies conventional narrative and artistic standards so utterly that it seems unfair to judge it by them.... Consider this a tone poem in 40 scraps of dialogue." — The New Republic
Posted Aug 11, 2009
13% The Ugly Truth (2009) " I think it's safe to say that the concerns about sexism in cinema that Heigl voiced so ardently after her career-making turn in Knocked Up have ebbed in direct proportion to the increases in her subsequent paychecks." — The New Republic
Posted Jul 28, 2009
67% Brüno (2009) " It's an odd cop-out for so fiercely gifted a comedian.... This is not a man who is doomed to be Allen Funt, or for that matter, Ashton Kutcher. He doesn't need to rely on the easy titillations and voyeuristic pull of reality TV." — The New Republic
Posted Jul 10, 2009
20% Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) " If it sounds as though the script (credited to Ehren Kruger, Robert Orci, and Alex Kurtzman) was written in serial-novel form during an all-night mescaline bender, well, I have no evidence that it was not." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 26, 2009
67% Away We Go (2009) " You may very well enjoy Away We Go more than I did. But rest assured that you will never love this movie as much as it loves itself." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 16, 2009
50% The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) " Pelham is not merely a film that may induce seizures in those who are susceptible; it is a film that seems engineered to approximate the experience of a seizure for those who are not." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 12, 2009
64% The Girlfriend Experience (2009) " There are layers upon layers here--a porn star taking on a serious acting role in which she plays a woman whose job is to make herself an object of male fantasy--but it's unclear whether Grey is aware of any of them." — The New Republic
Posted Jun 8, 2009
33% Terminator Salvation (2009) " Intensity need not be the enemy of personality, but in Bale's work it too often has been." — The New Republic
Posted May 22, 2009
37% Angels & Demons (2009) " [T]he film does not conclude with Langdon being elected Pope himself, but, watching the spiraling inanities of the last 20 minutes, one might be forgiven for thinking it would be the next logical step." — The New Republic
Posted May 15, 2009
38% X-Men Origins - Wolverine (2009) " Though Jackman is capable, as always, in the title role, there's no real weight to his travails, which play more as exposition than tragedy." — The New Republic
Posted May 1, 2009
56% The Soloist (2009) " [Director Joe Wright's] treatment of the material is so literal that at times the film seems like a syllabus for Remedial Cinematic Technique 101." — The New Republic
Posted Apr 24, 2009
84% State of Play (2009) " [A] film that has spent an hour and forty-five minutes puffing itself into a battle for the Soul of American Democracy feebly hisses its way to a deflated conclusion." — The New Republic
Posted Apr 17, 2009
17% The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) " [W]hite people haven't learned much in the quarter-century since Eddie Murphy's classic disquisition on The Amityville Horror." — The New Republic
Posted Mar 27, 2009
64% Duplicity (2009) " Like the carnal encounter with which it opens, it's a film that goes through the motions, and while those motions are frequently pleasurable, we, like Owen, are ultimately left disappointed." — The New Republic
Posted Mar 20, 2009
64% Watchmen (2009) " [T]there are problems both with the tale, which was an awful lot more subversive 20 years ago than it is today, and the telling, which in contrast to Moore's radical experimentation is disappointingly staid and straightforward." — The New Republic
Posted Mar 6, 2009
59% The International (2009) " It's betwixt and between, neither smart and understated enough to be le Carre-like nor stylish and energetic enough to be Bond-Bournian." — The New Republic
Posted Feb 14, 2009
25% Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) " [T]his adaptation is really just about buying the 'brand,' and--like the retailers in the film--selling America something it already had." — The New Republic
Posted Feb 14, 2009
22% Push (2009) " Belle... is blank as a page, and the intended romantic chemistry between her and Evans is never in evidence." — The New Republic
Posted Feb 6, 2009
12% Pink Panther 2 (2009) " [I]f half-hearted remakes of fondly remembered films (and their still more lifeless sequels) are one of the most acute ills currently plaguing Hollywood, [Steve] Martin is arguably the primary vector by which the malady is transmitted." — The New Republic
Posted Feb 6, 2009
79% Gran Torino (2009) " With Gran Torino, Eastwood has taken what might have been the likable last gasp of his iconic persona and turned it into the dullest, most heavy-handed sermon of his career." — The New Republic
Posted Dec 25, 2008
27% Seven Pounds (2008) " [A] dour, morally beclouded film that confuses generosity and grief, self-abnegation and self-annihilation." — The New Republic
Posted Dec 19, 2008
21% The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) " One can only hope that in the future [Reeves] will devote himself to playing androids, less-self-aware species of undead, stylish pieces of contemporary furniture, and other roles that do not require the exhibition of any recognizably human traits." — The New Republic
Posted Dec 12, 2008
78% Doubt (2008) " Doubt still creaks a bit of the stage, displaying the kind of tidy narrative geometry that's easier to pull off in the acknowledged artifice of live theater than in the feigned intimacy of cinema." — The New Republic
Posted Dec 12, 2008
92% Frost/Nixon (2008) " This is the irony of Frost/Nixon: Though it chronicles the moment when (in theory) the 37th president of the United States was cut down to size, the movie's presentation of him is utterly larger than life." — The New Republic
Posted Dec 12, 2008
94% Milk (2008) " Milk was murdered 30 years ago. The exceptional The Times of Harvey Milk won the Oscar for Best Documentary 24 years ago.... Yet, all this time later... Hollywood wants us to applaud its courage for finally--finally--telling this story?" — The New Republic
Posted Nov 26, 2008
55% Australia (2008) " Dear Baz Luhrmann: You have a problem, and the first step toward solving it is recognizing it: Despite your manifest gifts as a filmmaker, you can't do tragedy. And you need to stop trying." — The New Republic
Posted Nov 25, 2008
65% Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) " It's one thing for a movie to be dirty; it's another thing altogether for it to be plain sloppy." — The New Republic
Posted Nov 3, 2008
62% Changeling (2008) " [I]t is not enough to declare such improbable material historically accurate and leave it at that. It is Eastwood's burden to make it feel true... and in this, Changeling is a singular failure." — The New Republic
Posted Oct 24, 2008
59% W. (2008) " This may be the most overdetermined psychological profile since Hitchcock wound up Norman Bates and let him go." — The New Republic
Posted Oct 17, 2008
43% Blindness (2008) " Blindness is a glum, ugly film, and pretentious in the bargain. But, perhaps least excusable, it is a fundamentally ill-conceived film, the visual depiction of a world without sight." — The New Republic
Posted Oct 3, 2008
61% The Duchess (2008) " [Viewers] may wish to heed the marital advice Georgiana's mother offers early in the film: 'Equip yourself with patience, fortitude, and resignation.'" — The New Republic
Posted Sep 26, 2008
26% Eagle Eye (2008) " It might merit a B-minus in the silly popcorn movie category if it didn't unwisely decide, toward the end, that it wasn't willing to be just a silly popcorn movie." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 26, 2008
17% The Happening (2008) " [A]n astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 22, 2008
17% Revolver (2005) " [A]bout as compelling a brief for Kabbalah as Battlefield Earth was for scientology." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 22, 2008
31% The Hottest State (2007) " If nothing else, Hawke has managed to recreate, with neurological immediacy, the sensation of being harassed by a selfish, clueless ex-lover." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 22, 2008
44% redacted (2007) " Grant De Palma this much: At least he did not wait until 14 years after hostilities concluded to pull his catch-all war metaphor from the dark cupboard of his psyche." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 22, 2008
43% The Brave One (2007) " The Brave One is not merely the most morally repellent film of the year, but a contender for the stupidest." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 22, 2008
48% Towelhead (2007) " For a film that presents itself as a broadside against prejudice, Towelhead spends an awful lot of time flattering the prejudices of its audience." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 19, 2008
82% Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) " Vicky Cristina Barcelona is the cinematic equivalent of a book on tape: a movie that watches itself for you and tells you what it sees." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 16, 2008
19% Righteous Kill (2008) " Here's what I took away from Righteous Kill, the grade Z cop thriller...: If you can come up with the scratch, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino will do anything: kid's parties, bar mitzvahs, retirement luncheons, you name it." — The New Republic
Posted Sep 12, 2008
38% Swing Vote (2008) " It is neither appreciably better nor dramatically worse than its hokey, please-describe-me-as-'Capraesque' premise." — The New Republic
Posted Aug 2, 2008
Showing 1 - 50 of 126
Previous | Next
  • Sort by Rating:

    Sort results by this critic's rating. This option is only available for critics with a rating system (4 star, letter grade, 1-10, etc.)

  • Sort by T-meter:

    Sort results by the Tomatometer (percentage of critics recommending a certain movie)

Best to Worst Sampling

Best Reviewed

More...

Worst Reviewed

More...
Help | About | Jobs | Critics Submission | Press | API | Licensing | Mobile
Copyright © Flixster, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright Policy | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Ad Choices