Joshua Starnes Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Joshua Starnes

Joshua Starnes

Agrees with the Tomatometer 75% of the time.

Publications:: ComingSoon.net
Critics' Group:: Houston Film Critics Society

Total Reviews:: 395

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 395

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
8	78%	Iron Man 3 (2013)	" Iron Man continues to set the bar for Marvel's solo superhero films through a combination of wit, charm and out and out entertainment." — ComingSoon.net Posted May 1, 2013
7.5/10	8%	The Big Wedding (2013)	" The Big Wedding is not a classic, or even really memorable, by any means, but considering the pit it starts at, it gets off light. And that's better than usual." — ComingSoon.net Posted May 1, 2013
6/10	77%	42 (2013)	" 42 is enjoyable as hagiography goes, but for a genuinely important subject it has all the density of a soufflé. " — ComingSoon.net Posted Apr 12, 2013
7/10	32%	Gangster Squad (2013)	" Those looking for the depth and complexity of the best of the genre are in the wrong place, but take Gangster Squad for what it is and it's not a bad way to spend an evening." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
5/10	59%	The Last Stand (2013)	" As action movies go, it's okay. There are some good ideas underneath and an attempt develop them, but only an attempt. And though time has moved on, Schwarzenegger himself hasn't. As a hero's triumphal return goes, it's more of a whimper." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
6/10	47%	Bullet to the Head (2013)	" At its ridiculous best Bullet reminds us why we liked Stallone in the first place. But time has moved on, for him and for us and there's a point where looking back this way stops being entertaining and starts to become sad." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
4/10	13%	Safe Haven (2013)	" It's typical comfort food filmmaking and that's exactly what Safe Haven is: a mouthful of cotton candy. Empty, overly sweet, and likely to kill you from diabetes." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
7.5/10	52%	Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)	" The only thing holding it back is the look of the effects. There's no way around it - Digital Domain's work on the Giants is substandard and all the scenery chewing of Bill Nighy (as the voice of the head giant) can't disguise the fact." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
7/10	——	Go For Sisters ()	" Go for Sisters is a showcase for the best and worst of Sayles' work taking a melodramatic plot and adding layers of character into it, using genre as platform to explore different cultures and the way they bounce off one another." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
8/10	98%	Mud (2013)	" As fable like as Mud can be, with its good luck charms and wards against werewolves and demons and men who salvage using homemade diving bells, at its heart it is about real people going through real things." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
7.5/10	92%	V/H/S/2 (2013)	" If it's not great V/H/S/2 is still a vast improvement over the first; brutal and efficient and immensely entertaining." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
7/10	88%	Much Ado About Nothing (2013)	" As a modern version of Shakespeare goes Ado has a lot to recommend it and is worth seeing for Fillion's performance alone." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
9/10	94%	Before Midnight (2013)	" A grown up, mature work in every sense of the phrase Before Midnight is that rare sequel among sequels - the one which continues to better that which has come before it." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
6/10	62%	Evil Dead (2013)	" Beyond the basic plot and the return of a few of the most well-known sight gags from the first two Evil Dead films, it is generally its own animal." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 18, 2013
6/10	14%	Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)	" Playing his film with a constant wink and nod Wirkola spends Hansel & Gretel's running time balanced on a knife's edge and juggling flaming chainsaws while doing it. He never falls although he does frequently stumble quite badly." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jan 25, 2013
9/10	93%	Amour (2012)	" Amour is not an easy film by any stretch of the imagination, but for those in search of art without pretension or affectation, this is the way it's done." — ComingSoon.net Posted Dec 12, 2012
8/10	88%	Django Unchained (2012)	" Tarantino definitely has a point to make about slavery, and it is there, but it is well hidden behind a stout curtain of fun, which is ultimately what you'll get from Django Unchained." — ComingSoon.net Posted Dec 12, 2012
8/10	89%	Lincoln (2012)	" One of the best acted films of the year." — ComingSoon.net Posted Nov 2, 2012
7/10	34%	The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)	" If it's not quite as deep as it would like, Timothy Green does what it sets out to do better than most." — ComingSoon.net Posted Oct 15, 2012
7/10	39%	Here Comes the Boom (2012)	" It will help a lot if you like Kevin James, because you're going to be spending the entire film with him, but he's a likeable guy and Here Comes the Boom puts its best assets to work and only occasionally falls victim to its worst instincts." — ComingSoon.net Posted Oct 15, 2012
5/10	81%	Pitch Perfect (2012)	" Pitch Perfect isn't particularly bad. It isn't particularly anything. And that's what's most disappointing about it. That so many talented people could have worked so hard to produce something so... nothing." — ComingSoon.net Posted Oct 15, 2012
7/10	85%	End of Watch (2012)	" Not many character-oriented thrillers like this get made, however, so it's nice to be able embrace the ones that do, if you can handle the eccentricities." — ComingSoon.net Posted Oct 15, 2012
6/10	56%	The Bourne Legacy (2012)	" As mindless entertainment goes, Legacy is better than most with good dialogue and excellent character work from Renner. But it's incomplete and ultimately unable to carve out an identity of its own." — ComingSoon.net Posted Aug 10, 2012
8/10	77%	Killer Joe (2012)	" A little more time and a little more money might have turned Killer Joe into something truly great, or it might have ruined it, overwhelming the delicate chemistry with surface glitter. We'll never know." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jul 19, 2012
9/10	87%	The Dark Knight Rises (2012)	" What flaws The Dark Knight Rises has are few and far between, with most of it hitting just the right note as it prances between the darkest depths and the most hopeful highs like a cat on a hot tin roof." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jul 19, 2012
8/10	73%	The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)	" I'm not convinced we actually needed a completely re-launch of the Spider-Man series just 10 years and three films after it started, but if we have to have one, The Amazing Spider-Man is a good one to have." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jul 5, 2012
7.5/10	80%	Magic Mike (2012)	" A good script, sure direction, and a star turn by Tatum may not be enough to make it 'the Citizen Kane of stripper movies' but you do get isn't half bad." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jul 2, 2012
7/10	78%	Brave (2012)	" On the surface, Brave does everything right. It is well thought out, well executed with a great deal of charm and humor... But for all that effort and skill, the end result is just... ehh." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jun 25, 2012
8/10	94%	Moonrise Kingdom (2012)	" Kingdom benefits as well from a better designed story that does not weave restlessly the way his last did, but it's still not going to convince anyone who doesn't already like what Anderson does to follow along." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jun 22, 2012
6.5/10	74%	Prometheus (2012)	" For all the noise and thunder early on, Prometheus just runs out of steam, but what a ride until it does." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jun 5, 2012
6.5/10	48%	Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)	" After starting out strong and introducing a well-thought out group of pieces, the filmmakers suddenly seem to realize they have no idea what to do with them." — ComingSoon.net Posted May 31, 2012
5.5/10	22%	What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)	" This might sound obvious, but I don't think Hollywood thinks much of women." — ComingSoon.net Posted May 18, 2012
4.5/10	58%	The Dictator (2012)	" Cohen's mockumentary and social satire tastes may not be everyone's cup of tea, but there can be no doubt he knows what he's about in that milieu. The formula of The Dictator is unfortunately, painfully, not a good fit." — ComingSoon.net Posted May 16, 2012
8.5/10	93%	Marvel's The Avengers (2012)	" Marvel's The Avengers isn't the Second Coming, though it feels like it's been in the works almost as long as, but as far as big summer entertainment goes you'll rarely get much better." — ComingSoon.net Posted Apr 30, 2012
5/10	53%	Think Like a Man (2012)	" No amount of charm floating to the top can hide the bland, uninspired underpinnings." — ComingSoon.net Posted Apr 20, 2012
6.5/10	26%	Wrath of the Titans (2012)	" Liebesman and his small army of screenwriters can't quite hold onto the reins--there is too much of a desire to deliver the action beats to allow anything else to shine through--but they've tried where many wouldn't have bothered." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 29, 2012
4/10	25%	Act of Valor (2012)	" They tried this sort of thing once before in the '80s and ended up not getting much out of it but fodder for a Kevin Smith joke. Sometimes everything old does become new again. Sometimes, like Act of Valor it just stays old. And stale." — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 7, 2012
8.5/10	51%	John Carter (2012)	" A modern pulp adventure in the classic Spielberg and Lucas vein, John Carter is exactly what pointless entertainment should be but often isn't" — ComingSoon.net Posted Mar 7, 2012
5/10	41%	Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)	" A lack of inspiration permeates every foot of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island's frame." — ComingSoon.net Posted Feb 13, 2012
6.5/10	80%	Haywire (2012)	" Do you ever get the feeling a director is just messing with you? Just because they can? It's not unusual to get that feeling during a Steven Soderbergh film, especially when he moves away from the intellectual driven art fare he favors." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jan 27, 2012
8/10	79%	The Grey (2012)	" Action junkies should get what they"re looking for as well though be warned, The Grey is at its heart a meditative film about a man examining his place in the world." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jan 27, 2012
8/10	95%	Pina (2011)	" Pina is as rich in imagery and emotion as any film released this year and in some cases moreso." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jan 27, 2012
6.5/10	51%	Contraband (2012)	" Contraband's not a bad movie. It's not a particularly good movie, either." — ComingSoon.net Posted Jan 13, 2012
8/10	78%	A Dangerous Method (2011)	" A Dangerous Method probably won't tell you anything useful about Jung or Freud or how their relationship fell apart. What it will provide are sterling performances and classic Cronenberg repressed sado-masochism and sometimes that is enough." — ComingSoon.net Posted Dec 27, 2011
7/10	86%	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)	" The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is everything you would expect from Fincher's version of the book and that is the good and the bad. Slick and entertaining throughout, there is absolutely nothing in it which surprises." — ComingSoon.net Posted Dec 27, 2011
6.5/10	60%	Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)	" It's still a decently entertaining movie, but the thrill is gone." — ComingSoon.net Posted Dec 16, 2011
5/10	7%	New Year's Eve (2011)	" Another year, another holiday, another opportunity for Garry Marshall to turn all the innovation of Robert Altman and P.T. Anderson and the like into dreary, commercial crap." — ComingSoon.net Posted Dec 9, 2011
5.5/10	26%	Colombiana (2011)	" There have been some successes in the last few years following Besson's formula of stale dialogue, light character and strong action. But there have been far more misses than hits. Colombiana doesn't even stand out among those." — ComingSoon.net Posted Aug 26, 2011
5.5/10	58%	Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (2011)	" The fairy-tale aspect is not well-crafted enough to make for an engaging fantasy and the suspense is not scary enough to be truly thrilling." — ComingSoon.net Posted Aug 26, 2011

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