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
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 87% | 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
Read More | Posted Sep 26, 2016
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| 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
Read More | Posted Aug 1, 2016
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| 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
Read More | Posted Jun 27, 2016
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| 33% | 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
Read More | Posted May 30, 2016
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| 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
Read More | Posted Apr 25, 2016
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| 49% | 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
Read More | Posted Apr 18, 2016
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| 85% | John Wick (2014) |
Stylishly violent and not much else.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2014
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| 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
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2014
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| 92% | 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
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2014
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| 64% | The Maze Runner (2014) |
It's all familiar territory, but it's realized with flair.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2014
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| 89% | The Guest (2014) |
The director Adam Wingard joins the ranks of the current masters of unease with this suspenseful horror tale.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2014
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| 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
Read More | Posted Sep 5, 2014
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| 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
Read More | Posted Jul 25, 2014
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| 88% | 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
Read More | Posted Jun 30, 2014
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| 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
Read More | Posted Jun 23, 2014
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| 81% | The Fault In Our Stars (2014) |
The film dodges most of the pitfalls of clichéd cancer dramas with humor and natural warmth.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Jun 16, 2014
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| 23% | 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
Read More | Posted Jun 6, 2014
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| 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
Read More | Posted May 12, 2014
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| 9% | Catwoman (2004) |
Another hundred million dollars down the drain.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted May 2, 2014
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| 41% | Divergent (2014) |
Barely diverting.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Mar 31, 2014
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| 80% | Veronica Mars (2014) |
The film is an obvious labor of love for all concerned, and the good times are infectious.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Mar 24, 2014
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| 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
Read More | Posted Mar 4, 2014
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| 75% | 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
Read More | Posted Dec 30, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Dec 9, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Nov 26, 2013
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| 66% | Thor: The Dark World (2013) |
A wildly uneven but entertaining sequel to one of Marvel Comics' most enduring franchises.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Nov 25, 2013
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| 28% | 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
Read More | Posted Nov 25, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2013
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| 98% | 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
Read More | Posted Nov 19, 2013
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| 45% | Last Vegas (2013) |
The film, directed by Jon Turteltaub, has an easy but mediocre charm.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Nov 11, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Oct 8, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Oct 7, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Oct 7, 2013
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| 92% | Drag Me to Hell (2009) |
Playful and relentlessly scary.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2013
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| 91% | 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
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Aug 2, 2013
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| 86% | 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
Read More | Posted Jul 29, 2013
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| 73% | Despicable Me 2 (2013) |
This is one of those rarities, an animated sequel that improves on the original.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Jul 15, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Jul 15, 2013
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| 99% | 20 Feet From Stardom (2013) |
This spirited, thoughtful look at unheralded but ubiquitous artists gives supreme credit where credit is due.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Jul 1, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted Jun 12, 2013
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| 72% | Beavis and Butt-head Do America (1996) |
Its idiocy is irresistible.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted May 3, 2013
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| 32% | 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
Read More | Posted May 3, 2013
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| 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
Read More | Posted May 3, 2013
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| 98% | 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
Read More | Posted May 3, 2013
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| 85% | 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
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2013
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| 62% | Evil Dead (2013) |
An effectively relentless gore-fest.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2013
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| 81% | Hellboy (2004) |
When the movie's story line concentrates on the character of Hellboy and his relationships with those important to him, the film becomes a unique romp, with an exciting yet vulnerable superhero at the center who just happens to be the spawn of Satan.‐ New Yorker
Read More | Posted Apr 14, 2013
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