Critics » Jim Schembri
Jim Schembri

Jim Schembri

Agrees with the Tomatometer 62% of the time.

Publications:
3AW , Sydney Morning Herald , The Age (Australia) , The Canberra Times (Australia)
Total Reviews:
642

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 642
Previous | Next
Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
3.5/5 54% Lovelace (2013) " Amanda Seyfried brings the mythologised Lovelace to life ...a surprisingly touching, extraordinary biopic. It certainly stands with Boogie Nights (1997) and Hardcore (1979) as one of the few good feature films about porn." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
2/5 86% The Turning () " Disjointed and unsatisfying. While some stories soar - the titular vignette is stirring and beautiful - too many others fall flat or get lost in the search for profundity as characters spend an inordinate amount of time staring into the middle distance." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3/5 8% Runner Runner (2013) " A nifty, fast-talking, energetic film that dares turn the virtual - and virtually unfilmable - world of on-line gambling into a high-stakes thriller full of fights, gringos, hungry crocodiles and a perpetually pouting, glammed-up Gemma Arterton." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
2.5/5 8% Grown Ups 2 (2013) " Adam Sandler's follow-up to one of the most improbable blockbuster comedy hits in film history - Grown Ups took $270m in 2010 - is a similarly plotless, reasonably pleasant, rough-edged comic ramble." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 95% Stories We Tell (2013) " Canadian actress/director Sarah Polley (Away from Her; Take This Waltz) presents an absorbing family history that is so ingeniously mounted it doubles as a wry commentary on the documentary form, examining our willingness to believe what we see." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
4/5 65% Turbo (2013) " Though the "be yourself" theme is becoming a little too familiar what really sparks the proceedings here are the lashings of wily humour, the takedown of hero worship and a terrific subtext about overcoming the limits others put on you. " — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3/5 38% Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) " More pretty good, if forgettable FX-driven franchise fodder...proficiently directed...also features the ever-surprising Stanley Tucci, who sports the latest in a long line of formidable movie wigs." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
2.5/5 27% Planes (2013) " Think Cars, but with planes. Passable, pleasant, mildly fun and apparently written by computer." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
2.5/5 64% One Direction: This Is Us (2013) " What's super-odd about this film is its director, Morgan Spurlock. Best-known as an activist documentarian...it's a bit of a shock to see his controversy-magnet name attached to something so tame, formulaic and corporate." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
4/5 97% A Hijacking (2013) " Absorbing, realistic, non-sensationalist drama." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
1/5 47% I'm So Excited! (2013) " Think Flying High with a gay cabin crew and no laughs...The story has most of the plane's passengers rendered unconscious, presumably by showing I'm So Excited as the in-flight movie." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 60% Riddick (2013) " Riddick turns out to be one of the most pleasantly surprising multiplex films so far this year...bizarre as it sounds, the film essentially shapes up as a quality chamber piece set in the dusty wastes of an alien planet. " — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 14% The Smurfs 2 (2013) " Yay! The Smurfs are back - bigger, bolder and bluer than ever. It's fun fun fun, a more-than-worthy, hyper-energetic sequel to the fabulous first film...It's all wonderful fantasy nonsense, delivered fast and with plenty of self-consciously cheap laughs." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
1.5/5 14% R.I.P.D. (2013) " It's MIB meets Ghost via Ghostbusters in this flat, FX-driven drivel...Apparently, they're not just scratching the bottom of the Hollywood ideas barrell, they've worn all the way through and are now hitting the floor." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3/5 64% Mood Indigo () " A frothy, dreamlike romantic fantasy spiced by a constant cascade of surprising visual sparks." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
1/5 4% Paranoia (2013) " This is a tedious turkey of the first order. As well as being supremely dull, the film does no favours for feminism - or what's left of it - as far as film roles go." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 50% White House Down (2013) " While the film is exactly as silly as Olympus Has Fallen...it admittedly has a lot more fun with the cheeseball, post-9/11 patriotism that underlies the lark. That's the real saving grace for a film that is essentially a carbon of a carbon of a carbon." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
4/5 91% Blue Jasmine (2013) " Woody Allen's latter films just seem to get better and better...another A-grade movie to join Match Point, Midnight in Paris and Vicky Cristina Barcelona...a superb Cate Blanchett does some of her best film work to date." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 93% The Gatekeepers (2013) " The film bravely pulls focus on Israel's behaviour as an occupying power, the treatment of the Palestinians and joins the growing list of recent films that cast a critical eye over a subject that was once deemed too thorny to question." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
5/5 99% The Wizard of Oz (1939) " The Wizard of Oz is the cinematic equivalent of high-end wine, in that it gets better with age. The difference is that while wine must remain unopened to increase in value, the film positively thrives on it being tasted and shared over and over and over." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
5/5 34% Salinger (2013) " About as complete a profile as one could reasonably wish for...a must-see for anyone with even a passing interest in the issue of how art can take on an uncontrollable life of its own." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 26% Jobs (2013) " Ashton Kutcher does a very fine job as Jobs, portraying him less as a technological wizard and more as a business visionary who realised his out-of-the-box ideas by surrounding himself with people who were admittedly more talented than he was." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
2/5 42% Red 2 (2013) " The cookie-cutter action sequences - car chases, fireballs, shoot-outs - are so-so and whereas the first film had a giddy cheekiness to it, the vibe here just feels forced, a common trait of sequels we really weren't hankering for." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 69% Stoker (2013) " The first English-language film from South Korean firebrand Park Chan-wook (Thirst; Oldboy), Stoker is a pungent mood piece spiced with mystery, murder and plenty of unsettling emotions." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
4/5 63% The Best Offer (La Migliore Offerta) () " Clearly at a phase in his career where he can do no wrong, Geoffrey Rush is the aloof, germaphobic, magnetic core of a beguiling tale about fine art, art auctions, fake paintings, antique automatons and wealthy urban hermits. Great stuff." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3/5 100% The Rocket (2013) " Australian writer/director Kim Mordaunt was inspired to make this wistful, often lyrical film after his 2007 documentary Bomb Harvest...Thankfully he layers the unavoidable political notes with real warmth, humour and character." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 75% You're Next (2013) " Amidst all the slashing and killing, director Adam Wingard (working off a script by Simon Barrett) injects a good deal of dark fun into the proceedings, especially when it comes to unmasking the psychos terrorising the family." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
2.5/5 30% Kick-Ass 2 (2013) " Yet the film's biggest treat - and this will come as no surprise to Kick-Ass fans - is how strong and magnetic a character Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) has become. She's great. Trouble is, there's not enough of her." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
0.5/5 12% The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) " Awful, expensive, over-long, unremittingly dull attempt to start a Twilight-like franchise... plans were already underway for the sequel before this was released. They might just want to wait to see if anybody's interested first. " — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
4/5 88% What Maisie Knew (2013) " A superb, moving film, it's a tribute to author Henry James that his 1897 story could prove so illuminating when adapted for the 21st century. Performances throughout are terrific, seeped as they are in guilt, resentment and confusion." — 3AW
Posted Sep 29, 2013
3.5/5 68% Elysium (2013) " Packed with action and jarring visual toggles between the lives of the haves and the squalor of the have-nots, writer/director Neil Bloomkamp essentially overlays the concept of Fritz Lang's Metropolis with a ripping, ultra-violent class war." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 47% We're The Millers (2013) " A surprising number of verbal gags pepper the lark's broad, knockabout physical comedy, including an uproarious genital joke clearly designed to rival the eye-watering zipper bit from There's Something About Mary." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 93% Frances Ha (2013) " Its flighty quarter-life crisis theme [will be] familiar to anyone who's seen five minutes of Girls." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3.5/5 100% Red Obsession (2013) " The film isn't so much about wine but about the unstoppable rise of China as the world's next pace-setter...A very entertaining doc, regardless of whether you like a drop." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3.5/5 50% Now You See Me (2013) " Clever, original, wildly improbable, wildly enjoyable and directed with all the necessary flash and dazzle, the film combines the pleasure of a well-engineered heist movie with a twisty-turny plot full of wit, double-takes and sleight-of-camera." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 49% Pain & Gain (2013) " Without having to worry about giant robots or special effects so much, director Michael Bay gets the chance to properly exercise his talent for film comedy, a quality that laces a lot of his films and that too many critics are loathe to acknowledge." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 59% The Bling Ring (2013) " Feather-weight satire of rich teen girls who steal from celebrities...The film is the cinematic equivalent of reading a health warning on the frosting of an over-priced cupcake." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 85% The Way Way Back (2013) " Deft, well-etched dramedy about the awkwardness of adolescence." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 89% The World's End (2013) " Riffing on a wide variety of science fiction classics such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), director Edgar Wright keeps the laughs and the left turns coming." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
2/5 87% 100 Bloody Acres (2013) " A horror-comedy is typically much tougher to pull off than straight horror - or straight comedy, for that matter - and that balance is all over the shop in this occasionally giggle-worthy, hap-hazard affair." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3.5/5 95% Behind the Candelabra (2013) " Crammed with garish decor, wild costumes and some unapologetically affected central performances, the final chapter in the life of flamboyant pianist Liberace gets a feisty, full-bodied treatment here. " — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 69% The Wolverine (2013) " Slick, entertaining, super-hero thrill ride, the only quibbles are its length - every big film these days seems to be 20 minutes too long - and its 3D conversion. Really, it's another example of the marginal difference that process often makes." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
2/5 44% To The Wonder (2013) " At times the film actually feels like a parody of an arthouse movie rather than a work produced by a director often unjustly described as a cinematic genius." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
2.5/5 100% Cloudburst (2013) " A rough-edged Olympia Dukakis steals much of this comedy road movie about two ageing lesbians who go to Canada to get married. Enjoyable, but unremarkable." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 —— What's In A Name () " A huge hit in France, the film's verbal thrust-and-parry is so fast you do spend too much time reading the flashing of subtitles than looking at the gesticulations and exaggerated expressions of the players. Bring on the Americanisation, please." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3.5/5 86% The Conjuring (2013) " A very effectively mounted frightfest, played extremely straight, with very good performances." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 84% This Is the End (2013) " Enjoyable, time-killing piece of throwaway Friday-night pap... It's broad, stupid fun that, against all odds, ends up coagulating into an actual story with a point. " — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 98% Before Midnight (2013) " The trouble with those first two film was their souffle-light scenarios...Here, however, things are much juicier as infidelity, commitment, divorce, resentment and all the other soul-sapping things that clock in when you hit your 40s come into play." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
3/5 40% Only God Forgives (2013) " A feverish blend of ultra-violence, corruption, bad mothering and karaoke... Simultaneously seedy and artsy, the film has a jagged stop-start pace that will mesmerise some, bore others and confound those left over." — 3AW
Posted Aug 20, 2013
Showing 1 - 50 of 642
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...

Fresh Links

Halloween Movies For Wimps
Halloween Movies For Wimps External Link
 Scary movies too scary for you? Here are some alternatives for October 31st.
10 Best Superhero TV Shows
10 Best Superhero TV Shows External Link
 HitFix combs through TV history to compile a superpowered list.
Ridiculous Movie Mistakes
Ridiculous Movie Mistakes External Link
 RollingStone proves even the best movies miss a details here and there.
Deadly Movie Kids
Deadly Movie Kids External Link
 Moviefone lists 11 Movie Kids Who Could Kick Our Asses.
50 States, 50 Movies
50 States, 50 Movies External Link
 For July 4th, TimeOut has compiled 50 state-specific movie choices.
Follow RT on Twitter!
Follow RT on Twitter! External Link
 Spice up your feed with hourly Tomatometer updates!
Help | About | Jobs | Critics Submission | Press | API | Licensing | Mobile
Copyright © Flixster, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright Policy | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Ad Choices