Bruce Diones

Bruce Diones
Bruce Diones's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): New Yorker
Publications: New Yorker

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
No Score Yet The Polymath, or The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman A lively and thoughtful look at a deeply lived-in life. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted May 13, 2019
88% Don't Breathe (2016) The suspense is built as carefully as it is in a good John Carpenter movie; Alvarez uses the camera like a stealth weapon, exploring dark corners and hidden areas of the house with devilish glee. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 26, 2016
76% Lights Out (2016) Although the movie doesn't offer much in the way of characterization, its cheap thrills are manufactured effectively, like an amusement-park ride designed to rattle the nerves. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 1, 2016
94% Finding Dory (2016) While not as visually dazzling as its predecessor, the film is still colorful and immersive; the script, while predictable, puts an engaging spin on the issues of home and identity. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 27, 2016
36% Manhattan Night (Manhattan Nocturne) (2016) The thrilling twists and turns of Harrison's plot are here, but DeCubellis's hazy pacing drains the film of the book's zest. Though great material mishandled is frustrating to view, there are nonetheless some bright spots. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted May 30, 2016
30% Criminal (2016) The movie is a little more fun than it has any right to be, thanks to its super-serious cast (including Tommy Lee Jones, Ryan Reynolds, Gary Oldman, and Gal Gadot) and the straight-faced approach to its ridiculous shenanigans. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 25, 2016
51% Hardcore Henry (2016) This first-person-shooter extravaganza has little purpose besides showing what happens when a GoPro is strapped to a series of stuntmen as they run through their repertoire of extraordinary action moves. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 18, 2016
86% John Wick (2014) Stylishly violent and not much else. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2014
29% Annabelle (2014) The script, by Gary Dauberman, is a clichéd mess, lacking humor and surprises. But Leonetti stages some fright-worthy sequences ... - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2014
91% The Cabin in the Woods (2012) The filmmakers are less interested in providing a slow buildup to their frights than in splattering the clichés of the form in funny, spirited ways. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2014
65% The Maze Runner (2014) It's all familiar territory, but it's realized with flair. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2014
91% The Guest (2014) The director Adam Wingard joins the ranks of the current masters of unease with this suspenseful horror tale. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2014
91% Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Chris Pratt, overflowing with charisma, plays the leader of the pack of misfits, and his blissed-out space cowboy (with a love for seventies music) is so full of good will that he buoys the film and its requisite whizbang special effects. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 5, 2014
71% The Ring (2002) The movie's nifty beginning-all anxiety and dread-suggests that the audience is in for a fearful ride, but the one-dimensional story quickly runs out of fuel. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 25, 2014
87% Coherence (2014) The film's not perfect-the hand-held camerawork sometimes distracts from the unnerving mood-but it's a good, spooky mind-bender. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 30, 2014
92% How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) The writer and director Dean DeBlois takes the comedy to a deeper, more satisfying place than he did in the original franchise-launching animated film. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 23, 2014
80% The Fault In Our Stars (2014) The film dodges most of the pitfalls of clichéd cancer dramas with humor and natural warmth. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 16, 2014
22% Bad Boys II (2003) The producer Jerry Bruckheimer and the director Michael Bay's buddy-cop destructorama has all the editing beats of a sex film. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 6, 2014
54% Mr. 3000 (2004) This fuzzy baseball story about a conceited player (Bernie Mac) who comes out of retirement to fix his record (he's three hits short of the magic three thousand) is a major letdown. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted May 12, 2014
9% Catwoman (2004) Another hundred million dollars down the drain. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted May 2, 2014
42% Divergent (2014) Barely diverting. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 31, 2014
79% Veronica Mars (2014) The film is an obvious labor of love for all concerned, and the good times are infectious. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 24, 2014
85% Bottle Rocket (1996) [Bottle Rocket] meanders pleasantly, like a road movie, with a seventies-style, anything-goes offhandedness that whisks the audience through the rough spots. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 4, 2014
74% The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) The tale has no emotional resonance, and the thinness of the plot (only five of the book's chapters are adapted here) and the colorless depictions of the leading characters do it no favors. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 30, 2013
56% The Polar Express (2004) Tom Hanks (in a number of roles) and the other actors do a nice job of voicing their parts, but the waxy animated faces they've been given are off-putting. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 9, 2013
85% The Princess and the Frog (2009) The nineteen-twenties jazz-age setting and the primal-adventure storytelling are boilerplate Disney, scrubbed clean of any real local color. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2013
78% Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) By focussing the story on Harry (a leaner and slightly meaner Daniel Radcliffe) and his exploits, Yates dispenses with many of the novel's subplots and is able to push the story forward, ominously foreshadowing the dark times to come. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2013
66% Thor: The Dark World (2013) A wildly uneven but entertaining sequel to one of Marvel Comics' most enduring franchises. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 25, 2013
29% Charlie Countryman (2013) LaBeouf, who throws himself whole-heartedly into every role regardless of its worth, is a fearless and fascinating actor, and his sincerity holds the entire sleazy mess together. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 25, 2013
87% Kung Fu Panda (2008) The animation work is dazzling; it's lovingly detailed without being overdone (particularly the opening sequence, which is hand-drawn and looks like prints struck from ancient woodblocks). - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2013
85% Bridge to Terabithia (2007) The special effects suggest a Narnia-like romp, but the movie has a darker, more sorrowful landscape to explore and it does so brilliantly, with true nuance and heartfelt sincerity. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2013
99% How to Train Your Dragon (2010) Smartly dispensing with the usual hubbub of pop references that dot many of these films, the movie offers touching, quiet moments and imaginative, high-flying beauty. It's fantastically entertaining. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 19, 2013
45% Last Vegas (2013) The film, directed by Jon Turteltaub, has an easy but mediocre charm. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 11, 2013
90% Zombieland (2009) Woody Harrelson has a rip-roaring time in this comic splatterfest as a redneck from hell who is out to kill zombies. It's the kind of genre acting that doesn't get much notice, but it's a gleeful rampage of a performance. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 8, 2013
98% Let the Right One In (2008) A remarkably moving horror tale, about a pale, bullied twelve-year-old boy (Kåre Hedebrant) and his first love (Lina Leandersson), who happens to be a vampire. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 7, 2013
92% The Devil's Backbone (El Espinazo del diablo) (2001) Del Toro's elegant pacing and gothic touches imbue the proceedings with a cool mystery. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 7, 2013
92% Drag Me to Hell (2009) Playful and relentlessly scary. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2013
90% Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) Just like the books that the films are based on, this franchise gets better with each installment. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2013
88% Nico Icon (1995) With extraordinary technique, Ofteringer paints a moody, melancholy picture of a legend who decayed into the ghost of herself. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 2, 2013
85% The Conjuring (2013) Wan ... builds the many bumps in the night into a small Hitchcockian symphony of terror by way of long, eerie tracking shots, dramatic silences, and sudden scares that are frighteningly immersive. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 29, 2013
74% Despicable Me 2 (2013) This is one of those rarities, an animated sequel that improves on the original. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 15, 2013
92% Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2013) [Documents] the band's coming together and falling apart and [offers] a passionate tribute to its brilliant, beautiful music. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 15, 2013
99% 20 Feet From Stardom (2013) This spirited, thoughtful look at unheralded but ubiquitous artists gives supreme credit where credit is due. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 1, 2013
14% Jade (1995) Writer Joe Eszterhas's follow-up to his Showgirls fiasco is every bit as hopeless, and this time he takes some good actors down with him. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 12, 2013
72% Beavis and Butt-head Do America (1996) Its idiocy is irresistible. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted May 3, 2013
33% Hackers (1995) The story is negligible, but it offers the same order of fun as a good rock video: the marriage of images and music. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted May 3, 2013
38% Tank Girl (1995) Lori Petty does her tough-talking best to breathe some life into the comic-book action, but it's not enough. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted May 3, 2013
95% The Secret of Roan Inish (1995) The rhythms are placid and the camerawork (by Haskell Wexler) is simple and unfussy. The film's a charm. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted May 3, 2013
86% Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Hellboy 2) (2008) This film is happy to coast on its good humor and brilliant action pieces. Fair enough, since del Toro has taken the poetry of some of his best work and butched it up, creating some of the most amazing-looking creatures and battles of his career. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2013
63% Evil Dead (2013) An effectively relentless gore-fest. - New Yorker EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2013