Authors

Antagony & Ecstasy

Rating Title | Year Quote Author
85%

Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home (1986)

"A bit flimsy to be legitimately counted as "great" Star Trek, but aware enough of its characters and their attachments to each other and the audience that it's "fun" Star Trek."

Tim Brayton

99%

Mud (2013)

"Up till just past the three-quarter mark, Mud is one heck of a nifty psychological fable."

Tim Brayton

78%

Star Trek III - The Search for Spock (1984)

"Almost certainly the best of the "bad" Star Trek films... and for the first 30 or 40 minutes, it's not really even bad, to speak of."

Tim Brayton

91%

Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan (1982)

"This isn't great "for a Star Trek movie", it's one of the best sci-fi adventure films of the post-Star Wars era."

Tim Brayton

50%

Brother Bear 2 (2006)

"It's just a neutral object, with bears."

Tim Brayton

44%

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

"Merely a weak, inapt Star Trek movie, not a completely awful one."

Tim Brayton

94%

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

"A great adventure movie... presents spectacle in the most wide-eyed, awe-inspired register."

Tim Brayton

79%

Shanghai Noon (2000)

"You can't get a whole lot less substantial than this, but well-played, friendly banter is tough to do, and the film hits its mark perfectly on that front."

Tim Brayton

66%

Clash of the Titans (1981)

"The visual effects are clearly the only thing here that's worth bothering with."

Tim Brayton

92%

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

"Clumsy in some very key ways at the script level, it's nevertheless an exemplary B-picture."

Tim Brayton

63%

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

"Given the number of movies like this that DIDN'T pay off with such a top-notch monster, it is easier to forgive the various narrative, cinematic, and psychological failings. "

Tim Brayton

87%

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

"For the most part, the film is a carbon copy of the last one, in both its strengths and weaknesses."

Tim Brayton

50%

One Million Years B.C. (1967)

"Some of the very finest dopey schlock ever put onscreen."

Tim Brayton

83%

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960)

"Retains some scant measure of Swift's satiric intent, however distorted."

Tim Brayton

71%

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

"[The finest] of these formula-driven alien invasion movies... and not only because its flying saucers are pretty much the best ever."

Tim Brayton

50%

The Great Gatsby (2013)

"It's really not possible to retrofit a soaring romance onto Fitzgerald's plot skeleton."

Tim Brayton

——

Le Faux Magistrat ()

"Isn't up to the same level of mad, proto-surrealist invention. [of] anything else in the Fantômas series."

Tim Brayton

71%

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

"Put simply: you're not likely to regard Romeo + Juliet as truly great cinema unless the song "Lovefool" stirs your soul."

Tim Brayton

——

Fantômas contre Fantômas (1914)

"A lot better than most franchises this silly can claim to be by their fourth entry."

Tim Brayton

——

Mort qui tue, Le (The Dead Man Who Killed) ()

"Unfathomably for a century-old movie that has influenced an entire genre, it's actually a little bit surprising in spots."

Tim Brayton

——

Juve contre Fantômas (Juve Against Fantomas) (1913)

"All the best parts involve criminal plots so outré that delighted disbelief is the only sane response."

Tim Brayton

——

Fantômas - À l'ombre de la guillotine (1913)

"The film is chiefly best at creating a bizarre, off-kilter mood."

Tim Brayton

40%

Leroy & Stitch (2006)

"A Lilo & Stitch picture that ends warmly has done its duty, though I suppose only by the skin of its teeth. "

Tim Brayton

——

Les Misérables (2004)

"The stand-out, and easily the best reason to see this "Les misérables"... is obviously Jean Gabin."

Tim Brayton

83%

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005)

"The best movie, with the best script, in writer Shane Black's career."

Tim Brayton

78%

Iron Man 3 (2013)

"Not quite as much fun as Iron Man the first... but there are worse ways to welcome summer than with the low-key return of an old friend in good spirits."

Tim Brayton

46%

Pain & Gain (2013)

"Covered in an impenetrable layer of irony that evinces the smuggest imaginable contempt for the characters."

Tim Brayton

50%

Bambi II (2006)

"Even if we're going to concede that the narrative space filled by Bambi II needed the filling... surely there was a better story than this one."

Tim Brayton

71%

Army of Darkness (1993)

"A loopy work of imagination that never fails to be entertaining."

Tim Brayton

98%

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

"The best horror-comedy ever made."

Tim Brayton

55%

Oblivion (2013)

"People who need anything remotely resembling an emotional anchor in their movies had best look elsewhere."

Tim Brayton

47%

The Lords of Salem (2013)

"[Rob Zombie] makes good on the promise of being one of America's most distinctive horror directors to securely become one of its best."

Tim Brayton

85%

Death Race 2000 (1975)

"A movie that has a little bit of everything, and it's easily the best version of itself that could possibly be put together. "

Tim Brayton

——

Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie (2005)

"It's kind of amazing how much one can learn from these Pooh films. In this case, I learned that you cannot overestimate how crass Disney is actually capable of being. "

Tim Brayton

77%

42 (2013)

"It manages to be something that inspirational biopics, in my experience, virtually never are: inspiring."

Tim Brayton

49%

Jurassic Park III (2001)

"More than half an hour shorter than The Lost World, so at least there's a lot less of it to suffer through."

Tim Brayton

52%

The Lost World - Jurassic Park (1997)

"Readily the worst thing Steven Spielberg has ever made."

Tim Brayton

40%

Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch (2005)

"Not much happens, and it happens to characters who don't feel quite right, and there's no reason to care about any of this except those reasons that you bring in with you."

Tim Brayton

92%

Jurassic Park: An IMAX 3D Experience (2013)

"[Looks] better not only than effects-driven movies of the same period, but better, frankly, than half of what gets released nowadays."

Tim Brayton

98%

The Evil Dead (1981)

"A great, genuinely unnerving horror movie."

Tim Brayton

82%

The Place Beyond The Pines (2013)

"The good parts are so good, and the bad parts are so bad, that there's not even a way to calculate an average."

Tim Brayton

20%

Tarzan II (2005)

"The general level of technical accomplishment is so high that it really stands out badly whenever something briefly drops to the normal level of DisneyToon animation."

Tim Brayton

62%

Evil Dead (2013)

"Rather overt about its intentions to replace the campfire story creepiness of [the original] with over-the-top gore effects and a truly unfortunate reliance on jump scares."

Tim Brayton

82%

Empire of the Sun (1987)

"The best mix in his directorial career between typical Spielbergian flourishes of audience-friendly spectacle and seriousness of intent."

Tim Brayton

79%

Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005)

"There's not a scrap of Milne left, at this point."

Tim Brayton

16%

Temptation (2013)

"There are many problems with the opening two-thirds of Temptation; an infinity of problems. But the biggest is that it's immoderately boring."

Tim Brayton

0%

Mulan II (2003)

"It's no surprise that a script this addicted to fortune cookie utterances would fall short on presenting a sane, realistic version of China."

Tim Brayton

81%

From Up On Poppy Hill (2013)

"It's a minor work. There's no argument around that. Still, it's got a good heart, and likable characters."

Tim Brayton

85%

King of Kings (1961)

"Many of the scenes (especially the ones centered on Pilate and John the Baptist) are as good as anything in the history of the Biblical epic."

Tim Brayton

28%

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

"Where the first film is a rancid violation of everything that makes cinema even a little bit tolerable in any regard, the sequel is merely empty and mediocre."

Tim Brayton

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