Critics » Steven D. Greydanus
Steven D. Greydanus

Steven D. Greydanus

Agrees with the Tomatometer 79% of the time.

Biography:
Steven D. Greydanus is film critic for the National Catholic Register and host of DecentFilms.com. He also writes for Christianity Today Movies and Catholic Exchange. He appears weekly on the syndicated radio shows "Morning Air," hosted by Shaun Herriott, and "Heart, Mind, & Strength," hosted by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak. He is a regular guest on "Catholic Answers Live", and appears regularly on "Life on the Rock" on EWTN television. Steven has a BFA in Media Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and an MA in Religious Studies from St.*Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, PA. He lives in New Jersey with his wife Suzanne and their five children.
Favorites:
Not my best-ever list, but a random list of films I love to watch again and again.... The Kid Brother, 1927 The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1927 Modern Times, 1936 The Wizard of Oz, 1939 Fantasia, 1940 The Philadelphia Story, 1940 Casablanca, 1942 The Big Sleep, 1946 Singin' in the Rain, 1954 A Man for All Seasons, 1966 Star Wars, 1977 Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1982 Silverado, 1985 Back to the Future, 1985 Midnight Run, 1988 Strictly Ballroom, 1992 The Fugitive, 1993 Babe, 1995 Jackie Chan's First Strike, 1996 The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001
Publications:
Christianity Today , Decent Films Guide
Critics' Group:
Online Film Critics Society
Total Reviews:
849
Location:
New Jersey, 20 minutes outside Manhattan

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 849
Previous | Next
Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
A- 97% Gravity (2013) " Something almost unheard of these days: a Hollywood spectacle that shows us something new, set in the universe we live in." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Oct 3, 2013
B 27% Planes (2013) " While I'm not sure it needs a theatrical release, I'm struck by the rarity of seeing such a comparatively simple, innocent cartoon on the big screen." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Aug 9, 2013
B+ 69% The Wolverine (2013) " A gingery palate cleanser in a summer of overcooked Big Macs. " — Decent Films Guide
Posted Aug 2, 2013
C+ 65% Turbo (2013) " Too bad there isn't a lot more you can say about Turbo than "That snail is fast." He is, but that's not character development. " — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jul 18, 2013
B- 75% Despicable Me 2 (2013) " Turning Dr. Evil into Austin Powers ... is the best possible way to keep the reformed character from losing his mojo. (Oh, how Mike Myers has influenced this discussion!) " — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jul 5, 2013
D 31% The Lone Ranger (2013) " Even more than Man of Steel, The Lone Ranger is the poster child for our culture's terminal inability to offer children today heroic role models." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jul 2, 2013
B 78% Monsters University (2013) " A charming, well-crafted trifle - at least until the subversive last act, when it sets its sights a bit higher." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jun 21, 2013
C+ 56% Man of Steel (2013) " Not the Superman movie we need, but the one we deserve." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jun 13, 2013
B- 64% Epic (2013) " Produces images of poetic power ... The catch is that the world the filmmakers create is far more interesting than the story they tell in it in it or the characters they put in it." — Decent Films Guide
Posted May 31, 2013
B+ 87% Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) " Trek lite. Perhaps in the next film Abrams and company may set their sights on something more ambitious: finding consequential new stories to tell in their rebooted universe." — Decent Films Guide
Posted May 15, 2013
C+ 79% Iron Man 3 (2013) " Pepper has always been what grounded Tony, what connected him to reality. Iron Man 3 ultimately disconnects Pepper from reality...Whether or not Tony deserves better, Pepper certainly does." — Decent Films Guide
Posted May 1, 2013
B- 65% The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) " Almost all highlights and bombast, with little if any room for subtlety or poetry." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Dec 13, 2012
A 89% Lincoln (2012) " [Day-Lewis] convincingly comprehends Lincoln's melancholy and his humor; his self-deprecation and brandishing of authority; his backwoods simplicity and his highly literate verbal dexterity…" — Decent Films Guide
Posted Nov 16, 2012
A 96% Argo (2012) " It is startling how recent events have lent Argo an almost uncanny currency-in the process highlighting sobering current realities downplayed by the media." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Oct 12, 2012
B+ 80% Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) " If you see only one James Cameron-directed movie about theTitanic -and you should - see the one that doesn't star Kate and Leo." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Sep 28, 2012
C+ 47% Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) " Too much of the film is mired in the bleak, gritty world of Hollywood Medieval Grunge...Have filmmakers never looked at medieval art? They had pretty colors back then, I'm almost certain." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Sep 13, 2012
B- 87% ParaNorman (2012) " Not as daringly, disturbingly original as Coraline, but the dialogue and visuals are peppered with wit...most of the characters are one-dimensional stereotypes drawn without much affection." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Aug 16, 2012
B+ 88% The Dark Knight Rises (2012) " An overwhelming, enthralling climax...Yet something crucial is missing, a question raised ever more insistently in all three films, and at best left unanswered: Is Gotham City worth saving?" — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jul 19, 2012
C 37% Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) " More like a Happy Meal than a movie...another serving of exactly the same product that millions of families have been served before and will come back to again and again." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jul 12, 2012
C+ 73% The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) " Bungles who Spider-Man is, where he's coming from. This isn't the only problem … but, for me, it's the most intractable, because it undermines the hero's moral center." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jul 2, 2012
A- 78% Brave (2012) " Ironically, some critics are complaining about the very thing that makes Brave so refreshing: that it's not another tale of teen rebellion and parents learning the error of their ways." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jun 19, 2012
D 74% Prometheus (2012) " I don't mind that Prometheus raises big questions without ultimately answering them...I do mind that [it] has virtually nothing interesting, insightful or thoughtful to say about them." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Jun 8, 2012
18% For Greater Glory (2012) " A sweeping, handsome epic with strong performances, solid production values and magnificent locations across Mexico. " — Decent Films Guide
Posted May 30, 2012
C+ 70% Men in Black III (2012) " It's all acceptably diverting, not actively unpleasant like the 2002 sequel. There are no grand twists or revelations comparable to the truth about the "galaxy" in the original." — Christianity Today
Posted May 25, 2012
D+ 38% Dark Shadows (2012) " Feels less like a fond and knowing tribute than a work of indifferent, uninspired hackery." — Decent Films Guide
Posted May 11, 2012
B 74% Chimpanzee (2012) " Has the makings of a great nature documentary … If only Allen didn't keep elbowing us in the ribs to make sure that we get it." — Decent Films Guide
Posted May 3, 2012
B+ 86% The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) " Gadzooks, is this movie bonkers. I mean, really." — Decent Films Guide
Posted May 3, 2012
A 92% Marvel's The Avengers (2012) " If The Avengers isn't necessarily the BEST superhero movie ever made, it is unquestionably the MOST superhero movie ever made." — Decent Films Guide
Posted May 3, 2012
2/4 62% We Have a Pope (2012) " A premise in search of a thesis, a handful of scenes in search of a story." — Christianity Today
Posted Apr 7, 2012
B 49% Mirror Mirror (2012) " What's the last movie you saw that created an imaginary world bursting with color and beauty and inspiration? A world that reminded you of the feeling you had as a child the first time you saw Dorothy open that door on the Technicolor world of Oz?" — Decent Films Guide
Posted Mar 30, 2012
D 25% Wrath of the Titans (2012) " Next to Perseus and his world, John Carter is as colorful as Tony Stark and Barsoom is as colorful as Pandora. " — Christianity Today
Posted Mar 30, 2012
B- 84% The Hunger Games (2012) " [Katniss is] perhaps the most engaging action-movie protagonist in recent years … Am I glad I saw The Hunger Games? Yes. But I'm not eager to see it again." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Mar 23, 2012
B- 22% October Baby (2012) " Avoids the outright preachiness of the Sherwood Productions films … certainly a good-looking film … too much tell and not enough show. " — Decent Films Guide
Posted Mar 23, 2012
B- 51% John Carter (2012) " Doesn't do anything we haven't seen before ... yet somehow it feels credibly ripped from a larger mythology rather than being cobbled together from spare parts." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Mar 8, 2012
C 54% Dr Seuss' The Lorax (2012) " It could have been worse. How much worse it could be! / But is that enough? Not for my kids and me. / It's no Despicable Me, sad to say. / Perhaps someone should lift this Lorax away. " — Decent Films Guide
Posted Mar 2, 2012
C+ 75% The Adventures of Tintin (2011) " Tintin's fantastic, charmingly naive little world is not well served by the epic quasi-realism of high-tech computer animation." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Feb 22, 2012
B+ 77% War Horse (2011) " [Not] entirely satisfying … Somehow, though, the sum of the parts are more than the whole … It is a film of a kind we don't see any more, that it would be good to see more of." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Feb 22, 2012
A- 94% The Secret World of Arrietty (2012) " A wide-eyed sense of discovery and revelation permeates the film, and what it reveals is … the mystery and wonder of an ordinary home. One imaginative inspiration after another." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Feb 13, 2012
C+ 79% The Grey (2012) " A thoughtful, tough-minded little tale of survival and attrition that sets its sights a bit further than its firepower takes it." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Feb 10, 2012
2.5/4 66% The Woman in Black (2012) " The best ghost stories, from The Uninvited to The Sixth Sense, play to the heart, if not always to the head. The Woman in Black is at its best when playing to the nerves." — Christianity Today
Posted Feb 3, 2012
A- 93% Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011) " So preposterously entertaining that it makes watching other recent Hollywood action spectacles feel like work." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Dec 16, 2011
A- 96% The Muppets (2011) " The Muppets don't rap or bust hip-hop moves. That in itself is almost revolutionary nowadays, when adorable family-franchise characters spitting bars seems practically de rigueur." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Nov 22, 2011
2/4 46% Happy Feet Two (2011) " Overshadowed by more darkness, menace, heartache and anxiety than any talking-animal picture I can think of since Miller's last family-film sequel, the execrable Babe: Pig in the City." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Nov 22, 2011
2/4 43% J. Edgar (2011) " The sort of staidly respectable, competently directed biopic that gives a bad name to competently directed biopics, and possibly to respectability." — Christianity Today
Posted Nov 22, 2011
B+ 84% Puss in Boots (2011) " Unlike Mater, Puss is ready for his closeup." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Oct 28, 2011
4/4 78% The Mill and the Cross (2011) " André Bazin wrote about the mission of art to rescue the world from transience and corruption … I don't know if I've ever seen this idea more resoundingly affirmed." — Christianity Today
Posted Oct 21, 2011
B- 46% The Mighty Macs (2011) " Sweetly old-fashioned … nice and well-intentioned, but on the other hand the Macs deserve better than a nice, well-intentioned movie." — Decent Films Guide
Posted Oct 21, 2011
2/4 70% Footloose (2011) " A dumbed-down, sexed-up take on a story that was already risqué and not too bright … softens the '84 film's critique of the church, but is also further from its lingering Christian worldview." — Christianity Today
Posted Oct 14, 2011
C- 60% Real Steel (2011) " Just plain unpleasant to sit through. So much of the movie is spent amid screaming crowds and abrasive music, often in dark, trashy dives. " — Decent Films Guide
Posted Oct 7, 2011
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