Christopher Tookey Movie Reviews & Previews

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Christopher Tookey

Agrees with the Tomatometer 69% of the time.

Biography:: Chris Tookey has been film critic for the Daily Mail in London, England, since 1993, and for six years before that TV and film critic for the Sunday Telegraph. He has also written for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, Observer, European, Books & Bookmen, Literary Review and (in the US) National Review. He was Chairman of the British Film Critics' Circle for five years between 1994 and 1998, producing and presenting their annual awards ceremony in aid of the NSPCC.He is also author of The Critics' Film Guide (Box Tree, 1994). He is a frequent broadcaster on television and radio, makes after-dinner speeches at the drop of a rubber chicken, and lectures on Film Criticism to final-year American college students for the British American Film Academy.
Publications:: Daily Mail [UK] , Daily Mirror [UK] , Tookey's Film Guide
Critics' Group:: London Film Critics Circle

Total Reviews:: 1035

Location:: London, England

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Showing 1 - 50 of 1035

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
2/5	73%	World War Z (2013)	" Brad Pitt's hero lacks personality. All we know is that he loves his family, but no one has given him or his relations any exceptional qualities." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Jun 18, 2013
5/5	84%	Much Ado About Nothing (2013)	" I can't recommend it highly enough." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Jun 13, 2013
1/5	50%	Summer in February ()	" A plodding, sub-Merchant Ivory costume drama, not terribly convincing even though it's based on a true story, about a romantic triangle in Edwardian Cornwall." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Jun 13, 2013
2/5	38%	Admission (2013)	" It is ... perilously short on laughs, and the few that do come are generated by Lily Tomlin as the heroine's ferociously feminist mother." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Jun 13, 2013
3/5	56%	Man of Steel (2013)	" It's a triumph of spectacle over content." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Jun 12, 2013
4/5	93%	Behind the Candelabra (2013)	" Made for TV usually means 'not good enough for the cinema'. Here's the exception." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Jun 6, 2013
0/5	11%	After Earth (2013)	" The dialogue is platitudinous and delivered in stilted accents. The structure is that of a very dull video game made by someone who once watched The Lord Of The Rings." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Jun 6, 2013
2/5	68%	The Iceman (2013)	" Unfortunately, the movie runs out of things to say about its monosyllabic hero within a half-hour, after which the killings become repetitive." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Jun 6, 2013
5/5	77%	Populaire (2013)	" Not since The Artist has there been a French film as delightful or commercial as Populaire. If you're looking for a happy, feelgood romantic comedy, here it is." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 30, 2013
3/5	38%	The Purge (2013)	" It's clever in the way it takes some disagreeable elements from our own time - fear of racial minorities, envy of wealth, needless aggression and gun crime - slightly exaggerates them and projects them into the near future." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 30, 2013
3/5	60%	Byzantium (2013)	" Byzantium doesn't add enough that's new to the genre. I was never bored by it, but I wasn't excited, either." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 30, 2013
0/5	20%	The Hangover Part III (2013)	" At the screening I attended, not one person laughed." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 23, 2013
4/5	62%	Epic (2013)	" The quality of the animation is exceptional, and will open many eyes - young and old - to the beauty of natural woodland." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 23, 2013
0/5	7%	The Big Wedding (2013)	" Involves four Academy Award winners, all cruelly wasted on roles unworthy of them." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 23, 2013
2/5	50%	The Great Gatsby (2013)	" Luhrmann lovingly titivates the fake and superficial, and never gets round to serving the meat of the novel, which involves cutting into sham and heartlessness." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 16, 2013
2/5	33%	Deadfall (2012)	" Resembles Fargo in its geography and atmosphere, but fatally lacks its sense of humour." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 10, 2013
4/5	87%	Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)	" Abrams approaches the subject-matter with the zest, imagination and humour of Steven Spielberg on top form." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted May 7, 2013
0/5	69%	The Look of Love (2013)	" Director Michael Winterbottom has achieved the impossible: he has made a biopic of Paul Raymond, Britain's most colourful porn baron, that's unobservant, unerotic and dull." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 25, 2013
2/5	90%	Bernie (2012)	" I didn't find it very entertaining, but it is at least trying something different." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 25, 2013
4/5	78%	Iron Man 3 (2013)	" Comic-strip superhero movies are not exactly noted for intelligence, wit or humour. Iron Man 3 is the welcome exception." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 25, 2013
1/5	47%	The Lords of Salem (2013)	" Overlook the abysmal acting, unattractive nudity, awful dialogue, laughable effects and diabolical direction, and there are a few memorable shocks and images." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 18, 2013
2/5	62%	Evil Dead (2013)	" There's no suspense, and it isn't scary." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 18, 2013
3/5	51%	Promised Land (2013)	" A flawed but watchable eco-drama - heavily indebted to a wittier anti-corporate movie, Local Hero, made 30 years ago." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 18, 2013
3/5	47%	Olympus Has Fallen (2013)	" Some will find it ridiculously entertaining. I found it entertainingly ridiculous. Either way, it's a guilty pleasure." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 18, 2013
4/5	75%	Love Is All You Need (2013)	" It's a refreshing rarity to see a romcom in which the leads have true chemistry." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 18, 2013
0/5	55%	Oblivion (2013)	" The film has not a vestige of wit, originality or human interest." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 11, 2013
4/5	94%	First Position (2012)	" It's humane, involving and inspirational." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 11, 2013
3/5	81%	The Place Beyond The Pines (2013)	" 140 minutes, but a safe bet if you're in search of entertainment ..." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 11, 2013
2/5	42%	Flying Blind ()	" The plot unfolds in politically correct directions, but it requires the leading lady to make idiotic choices throughout, which make no sense in the context of her intelligence." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 11, 2013
1/5	65%	Spring Breakers (2013)	" It's the kind of 'experimental' movie hailed as edgy, subversive and transgressive, when in fact it's inept, amateurish and loathsome." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 4, 2013
1/5	34%	The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)	" This is a remarkably bonkers example of Hollywood schmaltz. It's so glossy and gooey, it makes Forrest Gump look like Fight Club." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 4, 2013
1/5	36%	Dark Skies (2013)	" A baffling bore." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 4, 2013
4/5	78%	A Late Quartet (2012)	" The film offers first-rate, mostly middle-aged actors in an intelligent screenplay that's decently crafted, covers interesting but unfamiliar ground and has a worthwhile central idea." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Apr 4, 2013
	90%	Good Vibrations ()	" Any film that can bring tears to your eyes by playing a minor hit from 1978 - Teenage Kicks climbed only as far as number 31 in the UK singles chart - is all right with me." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 29, 2013
4/5	88%	In the House (2013)	" An elegant, sophisticated black comedy thriller with a lot to say about storytelling, control and manipulation of the truth." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 29, 2013
0/5	68%	Trance (2013)	" A tedious shambles." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 29, 2013
4/5	52%	Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)	" Its conflation of two old English folk-tales, Jack And The Beanstalk and Jack The Giant Killer, turns out to be among the most enjoyable of fairytale fantasies." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 21, 2013
2/5	69%	The Croods (2013)	" It's let down by an unfunny script that makes The Flintstones look sophisticated, and a surprisingly irresponsible message to be aimed at very small children." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 21, 2013
3/5	89%	Compliance (2012)	" I admired its courageous realism, the fact that it dares to be unpopular yet truthful. Unlike most movies, it will give you plenty to think about." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 21, 2013
0/5	20%	Identity Thief (2013)	" Identity Thief starts off moronic and then goes downhill." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 21, 2013
3/5	37%	The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)	" It deserves to enjoy the same kind of acclaim as other adventures in skewering the excesses of showbiz." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 14, 2013
0/5	68%	The Spirit of '45 ()	" This is not so much a documentary as a barking mad Marxist fantasy." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 14, 2013
2/5	44%	The Paperboy (2012)	" It's difficult to know what's going on, and even harder to care." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 14, 2013
1/5	58%	Maniac (2013)	" It's hard to escape the feeling that the whole film is just a nasty, voyeuristic exercise in titillation." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 14, 2013
4/5	84%	Side Effects (2013)	" None of the leading characters is heart-warmingly sympathetic, and this enables Soderbergh to put them through hell without making us feel he's being unnecessarily sadistic." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 7, 2013
2/5	40%	Parker (2013)	" A mediocre, poorly paced thriller ..." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 7, 2013
2/5	61%	Broken (2013)	" Mainly worth seeing for a sparky performance by Eloise Laurence, whose cheeky smile lights up the surrounding miserabilism." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 7, 2013
4/5	59%	Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)	" The movie's strengths are its flamboyantly kitsch design and ingenious, humorous screenplay, calculated to please parents and grandparents at least as much as their progeny. " — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Mar 7, 2013
0/5	42%	To The Wonder (2013)	" It's a wonder that To The Wonder ever found a release. Terrence Malick's long, lugubrious film is a prolonged exercise in directorial self-pleasuring." — Daily Mail [UK] Posted Feb 28, 2013

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