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State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)

State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL) is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Nick Rogers, Paul Povse.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
1.5/4
Nacho Libre (2006) Nick Rogers Jared Hess already made the one good movie he had in him. Jack Black needs a director who can save him from character-breaking shtick. The stretchy pants of "Nacho Libre" only go so far before stretchy patience sets in.
Posted Jun 16, 2006  Edit critic review
3/4
Running Scared (2006) Nick Rogers A spinning-plates movie that only makes a shattered-glass mess in its finale with one twist for each character left standing. Otherwise, this empty-calorie eye-candy cartoon is an ultraviolent, boot-on-throat thiller with style and humor.
Posted Feb 23, 2006  Edit critic review
2/4
Firewall (2006) Nick Rogers There are tense moments early on, and Bettany makes a convincing, sleek sociopath, but the movie's compromised by a dumbed-down script, ludicrous plot twists and a howler of a finale.
Posted Feb 10, 2006  Edit critic review
2/4
Doom (2005) Nick Rogers A mostly standard-issue Marine fetish festival and also a regressive role for the Rock. He should never have to drop an F-bomb once, let alone 15 times, to seem tough.
Posted Oct 20, 2005  Edit critic review
3/4
Red Eye (2005) Nick Rogers Who knows if Craven's back on track, but for the first time in years, he's drawn shivers from the power of story and suggestion, not the awfulness of his movies.
Posted Aug 19, 2005  Edit critic review
2.5/4
XXX: State of the Union (2005) Nick Rogers It has just enough sociology, and is wholly dismissive of physics and logic. Still, the last half-hour's unbridled action raises it to the original's enjoyable-trash level.
Posted Apr 29, 2005  Edit critic review
2.5/4
The Amityville Horror (2005) Nick Rogers Shorter and sillier than the original, but easily more entertaining, this version feels like less like a documentary of supernatural events than a piece of nasty pulp horror.
Posted Apr 14, 2005  Edit critic review
2.5/4
The Pacifier (2005) Nick Rogers This cross between Kindergarten Cop and Uncle Buck is neither as bad nor as inventive as it could have been. It's not a 180 for Diesel, but more like a 120.
Posted Mar 04, 2005  Edit critic review
2.5/4
Million Dollar Baby (2004) Nick Rogers A thematically inconsistent and dramatically unsatisfying false idol that has been strangely elevated to the level of Clint Eastwood's actual masterpieces.
Posted Jan 27, 2005  Edit critic review
1/4
What the Bleep Do We Know!? (2004) Nick Rogers If positive thinking results in computer-animated body cells farting or singing Robert Palmer, our chi, mojo, or whatever has miles to go toward self-actualization.
Posted Dec 09, 2004  Edit critic review
2.5/4
Raising Helen (2004) Paul Povse Raising Helen is competent, commercial, square-as-square-can-be popular entertainment.
Posted May 27, 2004  Edit critic review
3/4
The Prince & Me (2004) Paul Povse It's a fairy tale in the best sense of the word, though the movie is far too hip and Julia Stiles' Paige too independent the heroine for any pat, happily-ever-after endings.
Posted Apr 01, 2004  Edit critic review
2/4
Taking Lives (2004) Paul Povse At a certain point, Taking Lives gives up any pretense toward sense and starts piling up insanely improbable extravagances.
Posted Mar 18, 2004  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Touching the Void (2003) Paul Povse The film concentrates, in awe-inspiring detail, on the almost incomprehensible rigors of mountain climbing and evolves into a philosophical, even spiritual adventure movie.
Posted Mar 12, 2004  Edit critic review
.5/4
The Butterfly Effect (2004) Paul Povse When it's all said and done, there comes a not half-bad twist. But by this time, we've endured too many reprises of canine flamb, plus Eric Stoltz as a drooling pervert.
Posted Feb 03, 2004  Edit critic review
2/4
The Gospel of John (2003) Steven Spearie In the end, The Gospel of John opts for safe ground. Jesus' lines are delivered with Shakespearean flair and the villains are all familiar.
Posted Jan 23, 2004  Edit critic review
1.5/4
Along Came Polly (2004) Paul Povse There is something cruelly funny about getting dumped on your honeymoon, but that was done far better in Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid.
Posted Jan 23, 2004  Edit critic review
3/4
Big Fish (2003) Paul Povse Burton has a big payoff up his sleeve. In a movie practically schizophrenic in mood, he manages to present the inevitability of death with a touching beauty and elegance.
Posted Jan 15, 2004  Edit critic review
3/4
Calendar Girls (2003) Paul Povse Gentlemen - you whose significant other may hold the weekend movie choice card - keep a stiff upper lip. You'll get through Calendar Girls just fine.
Posted Jan 09, 2004  Edit critic review
3/4
Cold Mountain (2003) Paul Povse It's a dichotomy of appearance, the forging of nature's splendor defiled by base human behavior. That said, I wish it had stayed truer to the fatalistic mood it works up.
Posted Jan 02, 2004  Edit critic review
2/4
Something's Gotta Give (2003) Paul Povse Nancy Meyers is like some grandma who keeps hugging you harder than you want to be hugged.
Posted Dec 11, 2003  Edit critic review
3/4
The Human Stain (2003) Paul Povse Even when The Human Stain founders, the skill and professionalism of those trying to communicate Philip Roth's mood is undeniable.
Posted Dec 05, 2003  Edit critic review
3.5/4
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) Paul Povse Master and Commander has a full arsenal primed to wash over you, in more ways than one.
Posted Nov 20, 2003  Edit critic review
1.5/4
In the Cut (2003) Paul Povse In the Cut demonstrates that miserable taste and artistic miscalculation hardly are the exclusive domain of male filmmakers and actors.
Posted Nov 06, 2003  Edit critic review
2/4
Beyond Borders (2003) Paul Povse Beyond Borders can be wrenching and vigorously committed, but it's also occasionally tasteless and calculating. Think Doctor Zhivago with landmines.
Posted Oct 30, 2003  Edit critic review
1.5/4
Runaway Jury (2003) Paul Povse Normally, I subscribe to the theory that Hoffman and Hackman - and Cusack, too - elevate any movie they grace and are worth following anywhere. In this case, I declare a mistrial.
Posted Oct 23, 2003  Edit critic review
3/4
Intolerable Cruelty (2003) Paul Povse Clooney and Zeta-Jones have a level of antagonistic banter recalling the best of the Hepburn-Tracy chemistry. Now, this is what is meant by the term movie star.
Posted Oct 16, 2003  Edit critic review
3/4
Out of Time (2003) Paul Povse A peppy and perspiring timewaster, but we don't mind.
Posted Oct 08, 2003  Edit critic review
3/4
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) Paul Povse This movie, benign and conventional as it is, needs a gutsy performance to keep it from sheer sogginess. The biggest surprise the movie generates is why it's taken this long for Lane's career to take off.
Posted Oct 01, 2003  Edit critic review
3/4
Winged Migration (2001) Chris Young While the film is astonishing in its scope and accomplishment, categorizing Winged Migration as a documentary may be misleading.
Posted Sep 29, 2003  Edit critic review
1.5/4
Anything Else (2003) Paul Povse In a single sentence, Allen's character invokes Camus and Henny Youngman. If an unfunny joke is told in the forest and nobody hears it, it's still an unfunny joke.
Posted Sep 25, 2003  Edit critic review
2/4
Cold Creek Manor (2003) Paul Povse Cold Creek Manor is cautious to the point of inert.
Posted Sep 25, 2003  Edit critic review
3/4
Swimming Pool (2003) Paul Povse This is sophisticated, sultry noir for those who fancy this sort of thing, but then, who doesn't?
Posted Sep 18, 2003  Edit critic review
3/4
Matchstick Men (2003) Paul Povse Matchstick Men is so good when it is good that it's somewhere between exasperating and galling when it undermines our invested goodwill with a monster contrivance out of deep left field.
Posted Sep 18, 2003  Edit critic review
.5/4
The Order (2003) Paul Povse The Order is scuzzy and lazy, such a muddle that no one really need be offended. Actually, no one need even bother with it all. That's why I'm being paid in this space, to spare you the temptation.
Posted Sep 11, 2003  Edit critic review
2/4
Le Divorce (2003) Paul Povse I have to admit I thought I'd sooner see a Wendy's bacon cheeseburger in Le Divorce before a slit, bloody wrist.
Posted Sep 04, 2003  Edit critic review
1/4
My Boss's Daughter (2003) Paul Povse In My Boss's Daughter, there is no gee-whiz factor, only one Herculean whiz. A pox on this scatological scourge, I say. Let us all together put down the seat and flee for our sanities.
Posted Aug 28, 2003  Edit critic review
2/4
S.W.A.T. (2003) Paul Povse S.W.A.T.'s last, seemingly interminable 45 minutes make the Mini Cooper chase of The Italian Job seem practically Truffaut.
Posted Aug 21, 2003  Edit critic review
3/4
Open Range (2003) Paul Povse There's not enough - well, hardly anything - new here to call Open Range a great Western. But it's probably as good as we're going to get and as good as it needs to be.
Posted Aug 21, 2003  Edit critic review
2.5/4
How to Deal (2003) Paul Povse In its non-hysterical depiction of the fog of personal relationship wars, the movie gently makes the point that, yeah, it really is a wild world out there.
Posted Jul 24, 2003  Edit critic review
1.5/4
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) Paul Povse The movie is extraordinary mostly for the sheer wastefulness of it all, the work of little boys who've never outgrown their love of blowing things up.
Posted Jul 17, 2003  Edit critic review
1.5/4
Alex & Emma (2003) Paul Povse Say, since Alex and Emma is supposed to be all about people of letters and the creative process, maybe somebody interested knows. Is lame-o all one word or hyphenated?
Posted Jul 08, 2003  Edit critic review
2/4
Hulk (2003) Paul Povse What we ultimately are left with seems to be a case of a director's serious, high-minded aesthetic in unholy alliance with inherently silly material.
Posted Jul 08, 2003  Edit critic review
2.5/4
Rugrats Go Wild (2003) Paul Povse Can adults sit through it with minimal doses of Novocaine from the concession stand? The answer: A qualified yes.
Posted Jun 24, 2003  Edit critic review
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