Too much of Taking Woodstock seems barely sketched out.
1 Comment
08/28/09
Taking Woodstock (2009)
31
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:36
Fresh:11
Rotten:25
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: Featuring numerous 60s-era clichés, but little of the musical magic that highlighted the famous festival, Taking Woodstock is a breezy but underwhelming portrayal.
Theatrical Release:Aug 28, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $7,366,736
Synopsis: A generation began in his backyard. From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comes Taking Woodstock, a new comedy inspired by the true... [More]
Starring: Demetri Martin, Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, Imelda Staunton
Director: Ang Lee
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Reviews for Taking Woodstock
Top CriticIt's harmless enough as a snapshot of a young man's awakening to the grand possibilities of adult life, but not particularly effective at capturing the spirit, the thrill or even the mud of this culturally monumental event.
08/28/09
Top CriticThis is very light material, and, unusually for a Lee picture, not everybody in the ensemble appears to be acting in the same universe, let alone the same story. On the other hand: It’s fun.
08/28/09
Top CriticTaking Woodstock has the appeal of an inside story told from an especially good angle. But beyond that, the movie is a celebration of the way this event has gone into memory and of the meaning it has acquired.
08/28/09
Top CriticIt's great that Taking Woodstock doesn't trample on anything sacred, but it also never arrives anywhere interesting.
08/28/09
Top CriticLee's first total miscalculation, his first wholly inessential film.
08/28/09
Top CriticCan you dig it? Maybe, if you aren't already up to your tie-dyed shorts in Woodstock memories, and if you can accept that there's relatively little music in this happy-go-lucky movie about history's most celebrated music festival.
08/28/09
Top CriticTaking Woodstock is hardly a bad trip; just a very inconsequential one.
08/28/09
Top CriticLee takes the viewer on a sweet-enough and nicely personalized trip through a corner of the '60s. And even if he skips the main event, he finds plenty of color in its surroundings.
08/28/09
Top CriticLee's larkiest film by far, Taking Woodstock features faces familiar and fresh.
08/28/09
Top CriticTaking Woodstock fails to achieve anything beyond a contact high because of Martin's listless performance as the central character.
08/28/09
Top CriticTaking Woodstock has fine moments and an enjoyable vibe, but it never develops a coherent point of view.
08/27/09
Top CriticIf you stick with this wistful, fitfully funny little trip, you will be rewarded with a movie that makes up in warmth, humanism and self-effacing modesty what it lacks in crackerjack pacing and epic pop-historical grandeur.
08/27/09
Top CriticLee distills the flavor of this transforming event and hints at how it transformed some who were there. His movie is a contact high.
08/27/09
Top CriticThe script has a dubious source, taken from a memoir by Elliot Tiber that, based on this evidence, does nothing to scrape the rust off Woodstock's mythic cliché.
08/27/09
Top CriticLee has gone for shaggy comedy. Some of it is funny. Some of it just sits there.
08/27/09
Top CriticAng Lee’s 11th collaboration with producer James Schamus starts out strong and funny before getting mired in 60s nostalgia.
08/27/09
Top CriticTaking Woodstock has the freshness of something being created, not remembered.
08/27/09
Top CriticLee and his producer and screenwriter, James Schamus, have turned Tiber’s book into a gentle, rather tepid film. Its first half is modest and likable, but it goes on for over two hours.
08/26/09
Top CriticAll the tie-dye, reefer, skinny-dipping, split-screen cinematography (from Eric Gautier) and acid-trip psychedelics courtesy of Tiber's encounter with hippies (Paul Dano and Kelli Garner) can't make up for the film's major sin of omission: the music.
08/26/09
Top CriticLatest News for Taking Woodstock
November 13, 2009:
James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
James Schamus might be a workaholic. If it's not enough that he's the head of Focus Features -- the independent imprint of Universal -- he's also an established producer and... More...
November 12, 2009:
Five Favourite Films with Ang Lee
The rule that no two Ang Lee movies are ever the same is confidently kept intact with the release of his latest, Taking Woodstock, a comedy about the true story behind the... More...
August 27, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Guess Halloween 2's Tomatometer!
This week at the movies, we've got the return of Michael Myers (Halloween 2, starring Malcolm McDowell and Scout Taylor-Compton), three dimensional fatalities (The Final... More...
August 27, 2009:
Box Office Guru Preview: Fans Choose Sides in Horror Showdown
In a move that studios rarely make these days, two films from the exact same genre open opposite each other on the same day targeting much of the same audience. The Weinstein... More...
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