Alissa Wilkinson
Tomatometer-approved critic
| Biography: |
Alissa Wilkinson is Vox.com's film critic. Formerly, she was chief film critic at Christianity Today. Her writing has appeared at Rolling Stone, Vulture, RogerEbert.com, Pacific Standard, Books & Culture, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Paste, and others. She lives and works in New York City, and you can find her @alissamarie.
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| Publications: | Christianity Today, RogerEbert.com, Paste Magazine, Movie Mezzanine, Vox, Flavorwire |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2/5 | 35% | I Feel Pretty (2018) |
I Feel Pretty could have used more work to be ready for its moment in the spotlight.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Apr 18, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 83% | Borg Vs. McEnroe (2018) |
Ably shot by Niels Thastum, the movie looks less frenetic than many others in its genre. But the story drags without much narrative tension, and by the end you just want the match to happen so there's some movement onscreen.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Apr 12, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 50% | Rampage (2018) |
It's both a blindingly predictable pastiche of an action movie... and weirdly charming. ‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Apr 12, 2018
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| 3.5/5 | 82% | Blockers (2018) |
As comedies go, it's pretty standard fare. But its characters and performances keep it light on its feet, even when the writing gets clunky.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Apr 5, 2018
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| 4/5 | 95% | A Quiet Place (2018) |
The result is frightening, and it feels wholly original.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Apr 4, 2018
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| 3/5 | 73% | Ready Player One (2018) |
It's a little hard not to feel like the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Mar 30, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 91% | Isle of Dogs (2018) |
Isle of Dogs chases its tail and says nothing. ‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Mar 21, 2018
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| 3/5 | 49% | Tomb Raider (2018) |
The old Tomb Raider movies are terrible, patently silly... But the 2018 reboot of Tomb Raider, starring Alicia Vikander as Croft, actually wants to be a movie. It's got a story, and characters, and an emotional center...‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Mar 15, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 39% | A Wrinkle in Time (2018) |
It makes me wonder how much Disney trusts its young audiences to be smart and able to understand the world.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Mar 7, 2018
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| 4.5/5 | 87% | Annihilation (2018) |
Annihilation feels wholly unexpected and raw. It is a disturbing film for reasons that are almost metaphysical.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2018
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| 4/5 | 82% | Early Man (2018) |
It's the sheer silliness of the proposition... that makes Early Man hum along.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Feb 14, 2018
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| 4/5 | 94% | Private Life (2018) |
Private Life refuses to stick to just one mode of storytelling - it has slapstick and melodrama, heartbreak and hope. ‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Jan 29, 2018
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| 4.5/5 | 100% | Bisbee '17 (2017) |
Bisbee '17 is a fierce, lyrical probe into the soul of a town haunted by a history it would rather forget. It's also an unsettling cipher for America, in a year when the ghosts of our past revealed themselves in frightening ways.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Jan 26, 2018
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| 3.5/5 | 92% | Sorry to Bother You (2018) |
[Boots] Riley is swinging for the fences here, with a clear vision of what he's after, and on the whole, he succeeds tremendously. It's a fantastical, weird, funny, devastating movie, and it proves Riley is a director worth watching.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Jan 25, 2018
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| 3.5/5 | 81% | I Think We're Alone Now (2018) |
It's more of a relationship drama, one that works as a showcase for two great performances against a post-apocalyptic backdrop that ups the stakes...‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Jan 24, 2018
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| 4/5 | 100% | The Tale (2018) |
A sensitive, innovative, even beautiful feature that cuts right at the heart of the most difficult conversations we're having as a country.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Jan 23, 2018
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| 28% | Proud Mary (2018) |
Proud Mary is still worth watching for two reasons. One: Winston is a talented actor, one worth keeping your eye on, and the chemistry between him and Henson as a mother figure is genuinely affecting. And two: Henson is just the greatest.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Jan 16, 2018
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| 3/5 | 51% | Downsizing (2017) |
... its unwieldy, occasionally baffling progression has a charm all its own.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2017
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| 1/5 | 26% | Bright (2017) |
In the end, Bright pulls off the uncommon (and not at all admirable) hat trick of being confusing, boring, and vaguely insulting about the matters it wants to appear smart on.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2017
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| 2.5/5 | 78% | All the Money in the World (2017) |
While the tale is interesting, All the Money in the World never quite makes clear why we should care about watching it.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2017
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| 1.5/5 | 31% | Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) |
The new third entry in the series isn't interested in character development or logical storylines or anything resembling innovation. It's lazy and limp and profoundly weird, and not in any meaningful way a "good movie."‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2017
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| 2/5 | 55% | The Greatest Showman (2017) |
Right now there's something especially uncomfortable about watching a character based on the father of entertainment spectaculars praising exaggeration, falsehood, and ignorance for its pure pleasure value, reality be damned.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2017
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| 88% | Titanic (1997) |
What I can tell you, risking puns, is that it swept me off my feet almost from the get-go, a grand epic romance-disaster that reminded me, in the middle of my overstuffed-with-movies life, of what we mean when we talk about the power of cinema.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 19, 2017
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| 3/5 | 76% | Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) |
A workmanlike comedy with some fun surprises hidden along the way...‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 18, 2017
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| 4.5/5 | 91% | Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) |
Star Wars has been with us for four decades now, telling that same essential story in a format that's overwhelming and engulfing. With wit, skill, and love, The Last Jedi takes up the torch and carries it for a new generation.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2017
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| 4/5 | 88% | The Post (2018) |
The Post is a humdinger of a historical journalism tale that manages to be about many things -- women and power, competition, friendship, and most of all the First Amendment -- while also being a rollicking, enjoyable time at the movies.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Dec 6, 2017
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| 2/5 | 31% | Wonder Wheel (2017) |
Though there are moments of brightness, the movie's a slog, with a central conceit that feels more like a sophomoric film school exercise than the work of an established writer-director.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 28, 2017
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| 3/5 | 85% | Darkest Hour (2017) |
Darkest Hour is a stirring film and an entertaining one, and it feels inspiring at the end of a trying year.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2017
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| 5/5 | 95% | Call Me by Your Name (2018) |
... remarkable for how it turns literature into pure cinema, all emotion and image and heady sensation.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2017
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| 3.5/5 | 97% | Coco (2017) |
... while Coco brings a lot of sweetness and light with it (and, undoubtedly, a lot of happy tears), not one story beat includes something to startle the adults in the audience into realizing something new.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 21, 2017
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| 3/5 | 85% | Wonder (2017) |
While the movie's premise feels prone to the maudlin, it's ultimately quite poignant... ‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 17, 2017
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| 4.5/5 | 96% | Mudbound (2017) |
You couldn't call it a hopeful film, exactly. But there is plenty of hope around the edges.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
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| 2/5 | 57% | Murder On The Orient Express (2017) |
Murder on the Orient Express is a whodunnit, but there's only really one mystery: Why is it so hard to care who done it?‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2017
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| 5/5 | 99% | Lady Bird (2017) |
... Gerwig is by far one of the most talented filmmakers working today, both onscreen and behind the camera, confident and winsome in a way nearly unparalleled by her contemporaries.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 2.5/5 | 76% | Last Flag Flying (2017) |
Whether the film works for you largely depends on how much you can tolerate these three characters bouncing off one another for two hours.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 2/5 | 54% | LBJ (2017) |
Directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay by Joey Hartstone, the movie jumps around in time in a way that doesn't serve the story, and it feels caught between cynicism toward and valorization of Johnson.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2017
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| 2/5 | 29% | A Bad Moms Christmas (2017) |
A Bad Moms Christmas is thin and silly, like an overlong Christmas episode of a sitcom you pair with some reheated lo mein when you can't figure out what else to do on a stray weeknight.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2017
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| 3/5 | 88% | Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (2017) |
I can't shake the feeling that we ought to have been listening to Joan Didion more carefully all along.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2017
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| 3/5 | 77% | Thank You for Your Service (2017) |
Thank You for Your Service is moving and unflinchingly honest - and its release comes at a time when its central theme feels depressingly relevant. ‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2017
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| 0.5/5 | 12% | Geostorm (2017) |
... the level of boredom I experienced during Geostorm ought to qualify as at least a second-degree felony in the state of New York.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2017
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| 4/5 | 84% | The Square (2017) |
The Square at times feels more like longform performance art than a narrative film. It's social satire by way of art-world comedy, and no woke participant is exempt from its barbs.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2017
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| 4/5 | 95% | One of Us (2017) |
... it's broadly understandable, too, which makes One of Us a bridge into empathy even for the outsider.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2017
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| .5/5 | 8% | The Snowman (2017) |
The Snowman does have the distinction of being so bad it's almost worth watching, just to recalibrate your movie-viewing meter.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2017
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| 2/5 | 83% | Marshall (2017) |
What we get of Marshall in Marshall is fascinating; if only there was more.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 12, 2017
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| 3/5 | 87% | Blade Runner 2049 (2017) |
It could stand to have as much clarity afforded to its narrative and thematics as to its visuals.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2017
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| 2/5 | 40% | The Mountain Between Us (2017) |
It has romance and danger and a few funny quips. And, of course, it has Idris Elba.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2017
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| 2.5/5 | 86% | American Made (2017) |
"Glib" is probably the right word for American Made, a movie that seems to exist purely to be Tom Cruise's rebound after his disastrous attempt to reboot The Mummy earlier this summer.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Sep 27, 2017
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| 2.5/5 | 85% | Battle of the Sexes (2017) |
At times, it works. But at others, it struggles to find its footing, and sometimes it flat-out falls down.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2017
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| 4/5 | 92% | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) |
Martin McDonagh channels Flannery O'Connor's humor and sensibility in a film that looks at the absurd world and laughs.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2017
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| 38% | I Love You, Daddy (2017) |
I'm not convinced it's thoughtful, and suspect it's nothing more than clever and funny provocation for provocation's sake.‐ Vox
Read More | Posted Sep 15, 2017
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