James Berardinelli Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » James Berardinelli

Official Websites:
reelviews.net

James Berardinelli

Agrees with the Tomatometer 78% of the time.

Biography:: I was born in September 1967 in the town of New Brunswick, New Jersey (USA). I started writing when I was about 9 years old, and suffered through the traumatic experience of reading chapters from my stories in front of my entire fourth grade class. However, although my "first love" was writing, too many tales of starving authors scared me off that path, so I decided to become an engineer instead. I attended the University of Pennsylvania from 1985 through 1990, obtaining both a BS and an MS in Electrical Engineering. Putting my education to use, I went to work for a company called Bellcore, which pays well enough for me to keep up the mortgage, maintain a home theater, finance film festival trips, and buy the 25-30 gallons of gasoline I need each week to attend screenings. As for my "film history"... As a child, I did not attend many movies. In fact, the first one I remember going to was JAWS, at a drive-in. During my junior high and high school years, I rarely ventured into a theater, but my interest in movies escalated while I was at college. In 1991, the year before I started reviewing, I saw about 30 films. The number jumped up to 180 in 1992, when I wrote capsule reviews for my own use. Starting in 1993, the year I "went public" on the Usenet newsgroups, I began seeing between 220 and 250 theatrical releases per year.
Publications:: ReelViews
Critics' Group:: Online Film Critics Society

Total Reviews:: 4281
Total QuickRatings:: 1

Location:: New Jersey, US

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 4281

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
3/4	67%	The Iceman (2013)	" The Iceman offers a chronological view into the life of its title protagonist... and what a life it is." — ReelViews Posted May 5, 2013
3/4	78%	Iron Man 3 (2013)	" The level of acting, at one time viewed as negligible in a superhero movie, is top-notch and no one seems to be mailing it in." — ReelViews Posted May 2, 2013
1.5/4	8%	The Big Wedding (2013)	" It's tired and dated with too few laughs to justify the stultifying attempts at drama and the impossible-to-swallow plot contortions." — ReelViews Posted Apr 28, 2013
3/4	46%	Pain & Gain (2013)	" This isn't great cinema, but it's vastly entertaining in an overblown, in-your-face sort of way." — ReelViews Posted Apr 25, 2013
3/4	98%	Mud (2013)	" A modern-day homage to the settings and characters popularized in some of Twain's best loved works." — ReelViews Posted Apr 24, 2013
3/4	56%	Oblivion (2013)	" Oblivion is imperfect but some of its imperfections result from being overly ambitious." — ReelViews Posted Apr 18, 2013
2.5/4	42%	To The Wonder (2013)	" There are moments of pure poetry in the movie but the production as a whole seems overlong and repetitive and takes a detour or two that distract from the aching beauty of the central story." — ReelViews Posted Apr 14, 2013
3/4	68%	Disconnect (2013)	" A deeply flawed motion picture containing moments of brilliance that illustrate its strong thematic content." — ReelViews Posted Apr 12, 2013
3/4	77%	42 (2013)	" It's worth seeing because the film is competently presented and the story is inherently important, but I couldn't help be disappointed that the result wasn't more fresh or visionary." — ReelViews Posted Apr 11, 2013
2.5/4	68%	Trance (2013)	" The movie is never boring or uninteresting, but I viewed it from a detached perspective, unable to become involved because I didn't really care about any of the three main characters." — ReelViews Posted Apr 4, 2013
2/4	62%	Evil Dead (2013)	" It's not scary. It's not shocking. It just wallows in viscera." — ReelViews Posted Apr 4, 2013
1.5/4	9%	The Host (2013)	" The movie's structure is awkward. There's no real narrative thrust." — ReelViews Posted Mar 29, 2013
3/4	81%	The Place Beyond The Pines (2013)	" Although The Place Beyond the Pines is not an unqualified success, when Cianfrance stumbles, it's because he's reaching for greatness ..." — ReelViews Posted Mar 28, 2013
1.5/4	28%	G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)	" Everything in G.I. Joe: Retaliation is perfunctory - technically proficient but soulless. It's not exciting. It's boring." — ReelViews Posted Mar 27, 2013
2.5/4	43%	Admission (2013)	" Infused with an almost relentless blandness, it's defined by soft comedy (a few laughs here and there), flaccid drama, and likeable actors." — ReelViews Posted Mar 21, 2013
3/4	48%	Olympus Has Fallen (2013)	" While Gerard Butler is no Bruce Willis, his Mike Banning is a better facsimile of John McClane than the guy Willis is pretending to play these days." — ReelViews Posted Mar 21, 2013
3/4	66%	Spring Breakers (2013)	" In another movie, these girls would be sex objects. In Spring Breakers, we're all too aware of what lurks under the pretty packaging." — ReelViews Posted Mar 21, 2013
1.5/4	39%	The Call (2013)	" This is as brain-dead as a movie can be and it assumes the audience will have the I.Q. of a rutabaga." — ReelViews Posted Mar 15, 2013
2/4	38%	The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)	" The material isn't sufficiently funny to allow me to forgive the film's feeble storyline and two-dimensional inhabitants." — ReelViews Posted Mar 14, 2013
3/4	67%	Stoker (2013)	" Stoker is deliciously demented, and that's a good thing." — ReelViews Posted Mar 13, 2013
2.5/4	36%	Dead Man Down (2013)	" Explores a common ground for noir thrillers before stumbling and imploding in a climax that feels like it might have been hijacked from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie." — ReelViews Posted Mar 10, 2013
3/4	60%	Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)	" An imaginative mix of live-action and CGI that pays homage to the iconic images and timeless sense of wonder in the classic The Wizard of Oz without being too deferential." — ReelViews Posted Mar 10, 2013
3/4	52%	Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)	" It's fast paced, energetic, and enormously likeable." — ReelViews Posted Mar 1, 2013
3/4	25%	Phantom (2013)	" Much of what's contained in Phantom is at best speculative and at worst completely made-up. But, regardless of the accuracy, it makes for compelling viewing." — ReelViews Posted Feb 28, 2013
2/4	58%	Snitch (2013)	" Someone please get director Ric Roman Waugh a tripod!" — ReelViews Posted Feb 21, 2013
2/4	15%	A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)	" I guess the people making A Good Day to Die Hard don't understand that mortality is one of John McClane's most endearing qualities. Turning him into a cyborg with a sense of self-deprecating humor makes this a low point in the series' history." — ReelViews Posted Feb 14, 2013
2/4	13%	Safe Haven (2013)	" It's trash - entertaining and escapist, perhaps - but trash nonetheless." — ReelViews Posted Feb 13, 2013
2.5/4	45%	Beautiful Creatures (2013)	" The weaknesses of Beautiful Creatures ultimately outweigh the strengths but the conviction of the central relationship is good enough to keep things from becoming laughably bad, even if it all comes apart toward the end." — ReelViews Posted Feb 13, 2013
3.5/4	93%	Amour (2012)	" Many viewers will find echoes of their grandparents, parents, or even themselves in these characters." — ReelViews Posted Feb 8, 2013
1/4	20%	Identity Thief (2013)	" A lot of movies released into theaters deserve the label of "bad." Only a few cross the line into "reprehensible." Say hello to Identity Thief." — ReelViews Posted Feb 8, 2013
3/4	85%	Side Effects (2013)	" It's the kind of thriller that Alfred Hitchcock might make if he was still alive and active today." — ReelViews Posted Feb 7, 2013
2/4	47%	Bullet to the Head (2013)	" It's a series of fight scenes that build to a climax that is surprisingly unsatisfying in the way it ultimately plays out." — ReelViews Posted Feb 3, 2013
2.5/4	80%	Warm Bodies (2013)	" It wants to be funny, charming, scary, and dramatic. It ends up being a little of each but not successful as any one." — ReelViews Posted Jan 31, 2013
2.5/4	40%	Parker (2013)	" The action scenes are crisply directed, brutal, and invigorating. There are several of them and, in the aftermath of two, Parker is left a bloody mess." — ReelViews Posted Jan 25, 2013
2/4	60%	John Dies at the End (2013)	" It's one of those films that might as well be announced with the words "cult classic" emblazoned on the marquee. It's an interesting failure that's almost worth seeing for that reason alone. Kind of. Not really." — ReelViews Posted Jan 24, 2013
3.5/4	——	The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys (1997)	— ReelViews Posted Jan 22, 2013
2.5/4	65%	Mama (2013)	" It starts out strongly, using evocative visuals and an unsettling backstory to establish a creepy tableau, but it proves unable to sustain those strengths all the way to the finish line." — ReelViews Posted Jan 20, 2013
2.5/4	59%	The Last Stand (2013)	" The humor keeps it from becoming completely generic but there's still nothing of particular interest here." — ReelViews Posted Jan 17, 2013
2/4	30%	Broken City (2013)	" Broken City? More appropriately, Broken Movie." — ReelViews Posted Jan 17, 2013
2.5/4	32%	Gangster Squad (2013)	" Its determination to follow The Untouchables' template (without the benefit of a David Mamet script) makes it a little too predictable to be memorable." — ReelViews Posted Jan 10, 2013
3/4	79%	Quartet (2013)	" The straightforward screenplay is elevated considerably by a series of sterling performances." — ReelViews Posted Jan 9, 2013
3/4	82%	Rust and Bone (2012)	" When Rust and Bone tells a story of a woman's recovery from a devastating injury, it hits all the right notes, traveling a path that is poignant without being mawkish and triumphant without being saccharine." — ReelViews Posted Jan 1, 2013
2/4	51%	Promised Land (2013)	" It's as if the people behind Promised Land only agreed to make the movie if there was an unambiguous "policy statement" at the end, and that's what we're subjected to." — ReelViews Posted Dec 28, 2012
3.5/4	88%	Django Unchained (2012)	" Tarantino may be the best working director to take scenes of blood, mayhem, and gore and transform them into moments of hilarity." — ReelViews Posted Dec 24, 2012
2/4	61%	Jack Reacher (2012)	" A clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie that offers little more than every other clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie." — ReelViews Posted Dec 24, 2012
3.5/4	70%	Les Misérables (2012)	" While successfully "opening up" the musical far beyond the limitations of a theater-bound production, Hooper retains its heart and soul." — ReelViews Posted Dec 21, 2012
3/4	52%	This is 40 (2012)	" Apatow does a good job of charting the uncertain waters of marriage - the tears, the arguments, the moments of clandestine sex interrupted by children, and the love and affection that are often masked by more immediate frustrations." — ReelViews Posted Dec 20, 2012
2.5/4	38%	The Guilt Trip (2012)	" [It] doesn't take every predictable detour, but it takes enough that the movie never ceases to feel overly familiar." — ReelViews Posted Dec 19, 2012
3.5/4	93%	Zero Dark Thirty (2013)	" A compelling contemporary thriller with the added benefit of also being an engrossing character study." — ReelViews Posted Dec 18, 2012

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