Adam Markovitz

Adam Markovitz's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): Entertainment Weekly

Publications: Entertainment Weekly

movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
C	16%	Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2014)	The bricks are still yellow, but the road doesn't lead anywhere special. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted May 9, 2014
B-	83%	The Double (2014)	Director Richard Ayoade gets a huge impact from minimal expressionist sets. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted May 8, 2014
B	24%	Devil's Knot (2014)	The movie doesn't grab you emotionally, but director Atom Egoyan (Exotica) teases apart the case's details with grim fascination. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted May 8, 2014
C-	26%	Brick Mansions (2014)	You know those ridiculous action movies where a bad guy with, say, four large guns gets beaten up by a quick-witted good guy with absolutely zero guns? They've got nothing on Brick Mansions. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 24, 2014
C	50%	Heaven Is for Real (2014)	There's no antagonist, no resolution, and no real climax - just a series of mildly charming scenes in which Colton shares heavenly knowledge while his family reacts with awestruck tears. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 20, 2014
B+	91%	Disneynature Bears (2014)	If the sight of bear cubs prancing through wildflowers doesn't make you smile, then you probably won't like the new Disneynature documentary Bears. You also probably aren't human. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 17, 2014
C+	22%	That Awkward Moment (2014)	The movie's ideas about relationships would've felt middle-of-the-road in the '80s, and its big epiphany moments (Guys can fall in love, too!) are shallow enough to make you long for the comparatively profound rom-com oeuvre of Kate Hudson. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 1, 2014
C+	53%	Justin Bieber's Believe (2013)	When the movie occasionally does confront its hero's foibles, its answers are disappointingly pat. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 30, 2013
B-	47%	The Book Thief (2013)	It would make for a pretty ghastly pageant if not for smart, understated turns by Watson and Geoffrey Rush. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 7, 2013
A-	98%	Let The Fire Burn (2013)	[A] lean and deeply unsettling archival-footage documentary. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 4, 2013
B	68%	Haute Cuisine (2013)	A pleasant dramedy inspired by a true story. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 27, 2013
D-	2%	Getaway (2013)	Getaway has some of the crass trappings of a charmingly crass, go-for-broke action pic like the delightful Crank. But it's too dumb - and far too cynical about what audiences want - to even know how to have fun with them. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 30, 2013
C	24%	Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)	Mostly, it plays like a overlong prologue for the already-in-the-works PA5. Here's hoping this is just the tension-racking lull before the next big scream. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 18, 2012
C+	89%	Bernie (2012)	All those twangy, homespun observations interrupt and annotate the narrative until Black and MacLaine's scenes start to feel as trivial as reenactments on a true-crime TV show. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 25, 2012
B+	86%	The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)	Even when the whimsy in The Pirates! Band of Misfits's history-be-damned story (which also ropes in Charles Darwin) feels a bit forced, the magic of the medium never does. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 25, 2012
B	75%	Disneynature Chimpanzee (2012)	Chimpanzee gives us a fully smoothed-out story -- about an orphan ape named Oscar -- populated with chimps so cute and Disney-fied that you half expect them to break out in an Alan Menken song. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 13, 2012
D+	18%	Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)	Like the first Ghost Rider movie, this one burns plenty of rubber trying to swerve around plot holes and thinly written characters. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 17, 2012
C-	11%	Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)	Good news: The shrill CG rodents, who last infested theaters in 2009's Squeakquel, are stranded on a jungle island with little hope of survival. Bad news: They've brought us along. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 15, 2011
B	37%	Immortals (2011)	Without any narrative heft, these sights don't last in the mind much longer than they linger on screen. And yet they thrill in short-lived bursts that Singh doles out carefully, keeping pace with the audience's appetite. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 18, 2011
C-	55%	Flipped (2010)	- Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 18, 2011
D	19%	Shark Night 3D (2011)	A ho-hum series of kills and lulls so predictable that it doesn't even look like much fun for the sharks; when they open wide, they might as well be yawning. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 2, 2011
B	63%	Jig (2011)	Uncovers the sweat and toil behind all the sparkly outfits and clickety-clack footwork. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 22, 2011
D	No Score Yet	Love Wedding Marriage (2011)	Though it doesn't work as entertainment, this numbingly chipper rom-com (directed by Dermot Mulroney) might be of historical value someday as an A-to-Z guide to the genre's most overworked clichés. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted May 27, 2011
C-	15%	Priest (2011)	Adapted from a graphic-novel series (and what isn't these days?), this unholy mess of horror and Western clichés is, at least, blessed with a wonderfully loony premise. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted May 13, 2011
C-	7%	Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2011)	Never mind that Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is loosely based on an Italian comic series from the 1980s; this low-rent adaptation owes an embarrassingly big blood debt to HBO's True Blood. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 29, 2011
D-	20%	Beastly (2011)	Stunningly bad. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 5, 2011
D+	5%	Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011)	Lawrence's gender-bending jokes are played out, and his slapstick is wooden and slow. It's understandable: Clowning around underneath that fat suit must be exhausting. Almost as much as watching it. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 18, 2011
B	30%	Sanctum (2011)	A lean, clear-headed 3-D thriller that knows exactly where it's headed from the moment its adrenaline junkie explorers dive into the world's biggest cave in Papua New Guinea. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 3, 2011
D	5%	Waiting for Forever (2011)	An indistinct romantic-dramedy-ish something or other. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 27, 2011
C+	84%	The Time That Remains (2011)	Suleiman's obvious gift for cinema makes you wish that in connecting so personally with his past, he'd occasionally reach out to the audience, too. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 19, 2011
B-	13%	Yogi Bear (2010)	There's nothing particularly inventive in the plot or grade-school humor, but the movie skates by on the timeless, undemanding charm of watching a tie-wearing bear try to steal people's lunches. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 15, 2010
D+	28%	The Warrior's Way (2010)	There isn't a shred of subtlety in their clowning -- or in any part of the movie, which clumsily shoots for operatic highs and lows. But with so many borrowed bits and pieces, the only feeling it successfully evokes is déjà vu. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 3, 2010
D	41%	Faster (2010)	Faster ... leaves it to Johnson -- as deadly focused as a gunsight -- to make it all believable. The problem is, he can't.. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 24, 2010
B-	81%	Today's Special (2010)	The cooking scenes are fun, but Samir's reawakening and romance with a co-worker hold about as many surprises as a prix fixe meal. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 17, 2010
C+	16%	Skyline (2010)	The Strauses used their tech savvy to make a marvel of logistics that looks every bit as slick as a studio tentpole. It's just a shame they haven't figured out a way to CG a decent story. Yet. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 12, 2010
D-	8%	My Soul to Take (2010)	Wes Craven's first new movie in five years is a brainless, joyless, and yes, you might even say, soulless teen slasher. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 8, 2010
C+	52%	Devil (2010)	A pocket-size supernatural thriller that plays a bit like Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians retold by an unstable Sunday School teacher. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 17, 2010
C	16%	Alpha and Omega (2010)	Underwhelming in the style of most off-brand CG, Alpha and Omega is livened by pretty Rocky Mountain backdrops and leadened by stock characters and the wolves' weirdly prissy behavior. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 15, 2010
C-	19%	Legendary (2010)	A well-meaning dud that'll put you out faster than a sleeper hold. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 8, 2010
C-	29%	Takers (2010)	At least they do look sharp in those suits. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 27, 2010
C-	4%	Vampires Suck (2010)	The Twilight Saga, with its operatic gloom and straight-faced fantasy, is undoubtedly ripe for a smart, good-natured ribbing. This isn't it. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 19, 2010
D	13%	Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010)	No movie -- whether aimed at adults or kids or canines themselves -- has the right to be as tiresome and unoriginal as this action-comedy mutt. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 28, 2010
D-	6%	Standing Ovation (2010)	For us grinchy adults out there without children to sedate, the whole thing feels slightly less like a movie than like the filmed record of a mutiny at a juvie talent agency. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 19, 2010
C-	9%	Marmaduke (2010)	If the phrase ''From the producer of Garfield'' doesn't scare you off, then step right up. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 4, 2010
C	35%	The Good Guy (2009)	The Good Guy has a few half-cute moments, some chuckles, and enough pretty faces to cast at least two TV pilots. What it doesn't have is a clue. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 3, 2010
C+	49%	Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)	Has all the CGI sorcery of a Harry Potter pic, but none of the magic. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2010
D+	16%	When in Rome (2010)	We get three acts of labored slapstick wrung from an eye-roller of a premise. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 29, 2010
F	No Score Yet	Transylmania (2009)	A no-stars, no-plot, no-point vampire spoof about a group of coeds studying abroad in a haunted castle, Transylmania boasts the kind of acting and direction usually relegated to the adult section of your local video store. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 4, 2009
B	22%	Planet 51 (2009)	Delivers a few pleasant surprises, including a smart story -- a reverse-E.T. riff that plops an American astronaut down in a world of just-like-us-only-green creatures -- and clever characters... - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 18, 2009
D	23%	The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009)	Earns points only for being remarkably unself-conscious about its across-the-board ineptitude. - Entertainment Weekly EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 4, 2009