Josh Bell Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Josh Bell

Josh Bell

Agrees with the Tomatometer 73% of the time.

Biography:: Josh Bell has been a film and TV critic for Las Vegas Weekly since 2002.
Favorites:: Heathers, Fight Club, South Park, Clerks, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Craft, Scream, The Big Lebowski, Bound, Wild Things, Almost Famous, Batman (Tim Burton-style), Rosemary's Baby, The Birds, Manhattan, Bring It On, Gattaca, Carrie, Pulp Fiction, Terminator 2, Breathless, Lone Star, La Femme Nikita, Romy & Michele's High School Reunion, Alien, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Heat, To Die For, Interview With the Vampire, Hannah and Her Sisters, Rear Window, The Silence of the Lambs, Quick Change, Clueless, Chasing Amy, The Conversation, Out of Sight, Misery, Annie Hall, Before Sunset, North by Northwest, Face/Off, The Last Picture Show, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Three Kings, Halloween, Memento, The Fly, About Schmidt, Wayne's World
Publications:: Film Racket , Filmcritic.com , Las Vegas Weekly
Critics' Group:: Broadcast Film Critics Association, Las Vegas Film Critics Society

Total Reviews:: 1062

Location:: Las Vegas

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 1062

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
3/5	77%	Iron Man 3 (2013)	" Black still has to hit all the required superhero beats, but he does it with as much personality as he possibly can." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted May 1, 2013
2.5/5	81%	From Up On Poppy Hill (2013)	" A sweet but rather bland coming-of-age story." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 26, 2013
2/5	54%	The Company You Keep (2013)	" Although the movie is structured as a thriller, there's no urgency or suspense." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 26, 2013
2/5	24%	Arthur Newman (2013)	" A slow, lethargic journey to nowhere, full of pseudo-profound dialogue and generic indie-drama plotting." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 26, 2013
2.5/5	46%	Pain & Gain (2013)	" The story is too inherently fascinating for Bay to completely screw it up, but he comes close." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 26, 2013
4/5	92%	Lore (2013)	" Proves that there is always room for another [World War II] story if it can be presented in an original and unexpected fashion." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 18, 2013
3.5/5	56%	Oblivion (2013)	" Looks so striking and moves so smoothly that it effectively distracts you from the glaring holes in the plot." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 18, 2013
4/5	92%	No (2013)	" Larrain deftly mixes social satire and historical drama." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 11, 2013
3.5/5	68%	Trance (2013)	" Boyle's expressive style creates its own trance to carry past the implausible explanations, all the way through to the end." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 11, 2013
2.5/5	77%	42 (2013)	" More a string of rousing speeches than a narrative." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Apr 11, 2013
2/5	28%	G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)	" So ludicrous that it might not even convince a sugar-addled 10-year-old on a Saturday morning." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Mar 28, 2013
2/5	66%	Spring Breakers (2013)	" Ironic exploitation is still exploitation, after all." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Mar 21, 2013
2/5	48%	Olympus Has Fallen (2013)	" The cheesy, jingoistic Olympus has all the freshness of a Sylvester Stallone vehicle from 1986 (and some of the special effects to match)." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Mar 21, 2013
2.5/5	38%	The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)	" Despite the comedic talent involved, the movie is thin on effective humor." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Mar 14, 2013
2.5/5	31%	Emperor (2013)	" Handsomely shot but narratively stagnant, with platitude-filled dialogue and mostly listless performances." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Mar 6, 2013
3.5/5	60%	Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)	" Raimi delivers a movie that may not add much of note to Oz mythology, but is still a lot of fun to watch." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Mar 6, 2013
2.5/5	52%	Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)	" An utterly generic Hollywood product, easily envisioned by plugging 'Jack and the beanstalk' and 'action blockbuster' into a theoretical screenplay generator." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Feb 28, 2013
2/5	58%	Snitch (2013)	" Waugh is more interested in inspirational melodrama and clumsy social commentary than in rousing action." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Feb 20, 2013
2.5/5	70%	Bless Me, Ultima (2013)	" Instead of a heartfelt exploration of a vibrant part of American culture, Bless Me comes off like a dull TV movie." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Feb 20, 2013
1.5/5	13%	Safe Haven (2013)	" Pulls out one of the most idiotic twist endings ever, setting it apart from other Sparks movies in the worst way possible." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Feb 14, 2013
2.5/5	15%	A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)	" No one expects Good Day to replicate the excitement of the original Die Hard, but this assembly-line product doesn't even live up to its immediate predecessor." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Feb 14, 2013
3/5	93%	Amour (2012)	" For Haneke, love is just another curious human trait to be dissected and used as a tool to disquiet his audience." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Feb 7, 2013
1.5/5	20%	Identity Thief (2013)	" The contrived setup doesn't make much sense, and the movie throws in far too many extraneous antagonists and dead-end plot detours, none of which are entertaining." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Feb 7, 2013
3/5	80%	Warm Bodies (2013)	" A refreshing approach to both the zombie and teen-romance genres." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 30, 2013
2.5/5	77%	Any Day Now (2012)	" Lives down to expectations far too often." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 24, 2013
2.5/5	79%	Quartet (2013)	" It's so low-key that it's soporific." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 24, 2013
2/5	30%	Broken City (2013)	" There's nothing actively offensive about Broken City, but there's nothing memorable or interesting about it, either." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 17, 2013
2/5	32%	Gangster Squad (2013)	" More of a cartoon than a history lesson, and about as close to the reality of organized crime in the 1940s as a Dick Tracy comic strip." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 9, 2013
2/5	69%	Not Fade Away (2012)	" Filled with overly familiar '60s signifiers and narrative dead ends." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 3, 2013
2.5/5	81%	The Impossible (2012)	" The dialogue is almost uniformly awful, and the plotting tugs on heartstrings more blatantly than a Hallmark Channel movie. " — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 3, 2013
2.5/5	38%	Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)	" None of it is quite ridiculous enough to qualify as camp, nor weighty enough to qualify as insightful drama." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 2, 2013
1/5	51%	Promised Land (2013)	" Just as underhanded as the soulless corporations it's taking to task." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Jan 2, 2013
3.5/5	88%	Django Unchained (2012)	" Django is undoubtedly one of the most creative and striking movies of 2012, but it's also one of the most exhausting." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Dec 19, 2012
2/5	38%	The Guilt Trip (2012)	" The movie could have been made with random basic-cable actors, and it would have been just as unremarkable." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Dec 19, 2012
3/5	47%	Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D (2012)	" Succeeds as a 3D showcase for Cirque performances far more than it does as a narrative feature film." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Dec 19, 2012
2.5/5	63%	Hitchcock (2012)	" Less of the domestic squabbling could have made Hitchcock a movie worthy of its namesake." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Dec 13, 2012
3/5	66%	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)	" Often entertaining, especially for those fans who loved The Lord of the Rings and have been waiting years to see more of Tolkien's Middle-earth onscreen." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Dec 13, 2012
2/5	53%	Citadel (2012)	" By literally dehumanizing its antagonists, Citadel not only muddles its political message but also undermines the gravity of its main character's circumstances." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Dec 5, 2012
3/5	79%	The Other Son (2012)	" At times, certain supporting characters come off as mouthpieces for political points of view, but Levy isn't making a polemic, and her ultimate message is positive and humane." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Nov 28, 2012
2.5/5	76%	Killing Them Softly (2012)	" Delivers some striking elements that never add up to a cohesive whole." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Nov 28, 2012
2.5/5	88%	Life of Pi (2012)	" Maybe Life of Pi isn't entirely unfilmable, but Lee wasn't quite able to conquer it." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Nov 23, 2012
2/5	48%	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)	" When the climactic battle finally arrives, it's a big letdown, full of bloodless decapitations (thanks, PG-13 rating) and awkward face-offs." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Nov 15, 2012
3.5/5	92%	Skyfall (2012)	" Craig's most effective Bond movie yet." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Nov 8, 2012
3/5	86%	Wreck-it Ralph (2012)	" The story often feels jumbled and unfocused. But the details of the video-game world are intricate and wonderfully realized." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Oct 31, 2012
2/5	79%	Flight (2012)	" A typically compelling lead performance from Denzel Washington buried in a muddled, overwrought story about addiction and redemption. " — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Oct 31, 2012
2.5/5	68%	Cloud Atlas (2012)	" There's so much flash and grandeur in Cloud Atlas that it's difficult at first to see how little substance is behind it." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Oct 25, 2012
2/5	25%	Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)	" Trotting out the same types of scares, the same plot structure and the same found-footage format gets less effective with each installment." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Oct 20, 2012
1/5	12%	Alex Cross (2012)	" The relentless ugliness of the story isn't thrilling or involving, and its vague undercurrent of misogyny makes it even more off-putting." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Oct 17, 2012
4/5	96%	Argo (2012)	" It's the kind of movie that wins Oscars, sure, but it's also consistently entertaining and socially conscious without being heavy-handed." — Las Vegas Weekly Posted Oct 11, 2012

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