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August Rush (2007)

tomatometer

36

Average Rating: 4.8/10
Reviews Counted: 122
Fresh: 44 | Rotten: 78

Though featuring a talented cast, August Rush cannot overcome the flimsy direction and schmaltzy plot.

24

Average Rating: 4.3/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 22

Though featuring a talented cast, August Rush cannot overcome the flimsy direction and schmaltzy plot.

audience

84

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 208,364

My Rating

Movie Info

Estranged from his parents by circumstance and nudged toward a foster family, a young boy seeks out his long-lost folks and discovers prodigious musical talent in this family-oriented drama from Disco Pigs director Kirsten Sheridan. In the aftermath of a passionate night together above New York's Washington Square, a charismatic Irish guitarist named Louis (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and a reserved cellist named Lyla (Keri Russell) are forced apart by fate. Despite the fact that they do not remain

PG, 1 hr. 53 min.

Drama, Romance

,

Nick Castle, James V. Hart

Mar 11, 2008

$31.5M

Warner Bros. Pictures

Cast

All Critics (127) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (83) | DVD (16)

However predictable, a good ol' fashioned happy ending is always welcome. But bring a box of tissues: A good cry is to be expected as well.

December 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Even the final few moments, which should have us choking up, seemed hurried and shot from the wrong angles.

November 27, 2007 Comments (3)
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

August Rush will not be for everyone, but it works if you surrender to its lilting and unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry.

November 22, 2007 Full Review Source: USA Today | Comment
USA Today
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Exuberantly bad and strenuously preposterous.

November 21, 2007 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Intended as a fuzzy family fable, August plays more to the gag reflex than to the heart.

November 21, 2007 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comments (3)
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[An] inane musical melodrama.

November 21, 2007 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Essentially an extended music video, and with about as much narrative weight, August Rush is empty, flat, and pointless.

December 28, 2010 Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net | Comment
ComingSoon.net

A music box trying to pass itself off as an orchestra.

May 5, 2010 Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | Comment
Boxoffice Magazine

A heartwarming fairy-tale that is undeniably sweet, even if it occasionally crosses over into sappiness.

July 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Times-Picayune | Comment
Times-Picayune

"The only thing astounding about this movie is how bad it is."

September 8, 2008 Full Review Source: ReelzChannel.com | Comment

Someone in Hollywood must have it in for Thanksgiving. How else to explain the cruelly timed release of August Rush, a wretched confection that only the most determined will be able to count among their blessings?

May 8, 2008 Full Review Source: Style Weekly (Richmond, VA) | Comments (4)

While many films require a suspension of disbelief, August Rush asks viewers to terminate their disbelief without severance and have security escort it from the building.

May 1, 2008 Full Review Source: MSNBC | Comment (1)

...a lot better than I thought it was going to be and a lot worse than it could have been. (HD DVD and DVD Combo Edition)

April 20, 2008 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
Movie Metropolis

Its almost desperate earnestness actually turns out to be its greatest appeal -- August Rush does believe in fairy tales, it does it does it does!

April 17, 2008 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | Comment
Window to the Movies

... the "Oliver Twist" knockoff forgoes the social commentary of Dickens to play up the gooey romantic fantasy of music as the language of love.

March 20, 2008 Full Review Source: MSN.com | Comment
MSN.com

If you approach it with the right attitude, it's impossible not to be moved by this tale of music, loss, and passion.

March 11, 2008 Full Review Source: The Deadbolt | Comment
The Deadbolt

August Rush kind of feels like a 2-hour coming attractions preview. Lots of fragmented stuff happens, without ever connecting the dots in between.

March 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Aisle Seat | Comments (2)
Aisle Seat

...warmly affecting at times and almost unbearably saccharine at others.

March 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
Movie Metropolis

When a movie is as disappointing and simplistic as this family melodrama, showing deleted scenes in the DVD edition (March 2008) only exposes more the film's shortcomings.

March 8, 2008 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comment

It doesn't matter if you love music or inspirational stories or Robin Williams (anyone?) -- this is enough to make your teeth ache.

March 6, 2008 Full Review Source: Washington City Paper | Comment (1)
Washington City Paper

More fable than film, there is no earthly reason why August Rush should work. But it does.

February 28, 2008 Full Review Source: Colorado Springs Gazette | Comment (1)
Colorado Springs Gazette
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for August Rush

Touching. Great music.

August 5, 2010
jamers2011
Jameson Worley

Super Reviewer

A good hearted film with some great music, great performances, but a very terrible ending that almost ruined it for me.

August 17, 2011
DreamExtractor
Brad Wright

Super Reviewer

    1. Evan Taylor: Listen. Can you hear it? The music. I can hear it everywhere. In the wind... in the air... in the light. It's all around us. All you have to do is open yourself up. All you have to do... is listen.
    – Submitted by Paris T (23 days ago)
    1. Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace: I just realized. The harmonica song you hear in the background when the parents first meet is...Yup, the same tune the Wizard plays in the flop house 11 years later... it was him!
    – Submitted by Jeff S (47 days ago)
    1. Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace: You got to love music more than you love food. More than life. More than yourself.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)
    1. Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace: You know what music is? God's little reminder that there's something else besides us in this universe, a harmonic connection between all living beings, every where, even the stars.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Der Klang des Herzens (DE)
  • El triunfo de un sueño (ES)
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