Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn
Mark Steyn's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): The Spectator
Publications: The Spectator

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
64% Love Actually (2003) Love Actually isn't in love with anyone except itself: it's like watching a practised lounge lizard go through his repertoire. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 5, 2019
71% The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) A better title for the film would have been Beauty and the Beast, but Disney's already done that -- which may be why Alan Menken's score sounds like warmed over off-cuts from its predecessor. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 10, 2019
53% The Cable Guy (1996) As a supposed summer blockbuster, this is a very eccentric film: The Cable Guy mocks its star as a pathetic jerk and comes close to telling its audience that we are, too. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 10, 2019
85% The English Patient (1996) Whenever the movie's design seems too elaborate, too remote, it's the rare detail of these performances that redeems it. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 20, 2019
74% Sleepless in Seattle (1993) The emotional weight of the drama rests on Hanks, and you appreciate how skilfully Ephron structures the film so that the two principals are bound by song and sentiment rather than physical proximity. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 25, 2019
86% Chicago (2002) Chicago is supposed to be cynical about showbiz, not embarrassed by it. Oh, well. There'll be another film musical along around 2008. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 28, 2018
50% Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) The director, Ron Howard, is a grand old heartwarmer (Cocoon, etc.) but the heart of this picture is dead. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
75% 8 Mile (2002) Outside the rap slams, either the acting or the persona is a bit joyless. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
58% Enduring Love (2004) The whole film ... is not thrilling or moving; it is interesting, which is fine by me but will not make it a huge success. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
91% Hotel Rwanda (2004) Remarkably, the director Terry George and his co-writer Keir Pearson have pulled it off, rooting the big picture of anonymous murder in one small precise close-up. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
88% Mystic River (2003) One of its best qualities is that it's dark but not depressing. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
43% The Village (2004) This director is a young dog who needs some new tricks. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
45% Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) The quaintly hand-painted cityscapes of Syracuse are pretty. It would be nice if there was something going on in the foreground. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
41% Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) There's an easy confidence about the project. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
37% Brother Bear (2003) Rough rule of thumb: the more an animated movie drones on about the Great Spirit, the less likely it is to have any great spirit. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
65% Bright Young Things (2004) What's good about the movie is the lesser known up-and-corners who play the bright young things themselves, especially the appellatorily appropriate Fenella Woolgar as Agatha - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
69% Confidence (2003) It's the obsession with style that kills this movie. Not that having an obsession with it is the same as having it. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
46% National Treasure (2004) It is ... for all its moments a quintessential Bruckheimer project: a big movie that at its core is just too small. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
87% A Mighty Wind (2003) Aside from Miss Lynch, there are two very sweet performances, by Levy and O'Hara as Mitch and Mickey. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
44% The Day After Tomorrow (2004) As a disaster [movie] ... it's oddly reassuring. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
38% Sahara (2005) To get a franchise going, you need your own style, and this movie hasn't an original thought on anything. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2018
67% Death Wish (1974) Death Wish is a remarkable social artefact, a valuable record of the day before yesterday - 1974 - when New York and many other American cities seemed in large part ungovernable. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
81% Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) The film is excessively, parochially British at its periphery, yet insufficiently so at its core. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
49% The Passion of the Christ (2004) For millions of people, Mel Gibson shows them their Jesus and their salvation. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
30% Flight of the Phoenix (2004) John Moore decided the time was ripe for a new Phoenix, so he sawed the old movie in two, rewrote one half and tries to get it to take off. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
86% Collateral (2004) If the final destination's a bit of a disappointment, getting there is a lot of fun. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
33% The In-Laws (2003) Fleming and co. were working from a version that had clicked very well in 1979, and such interest as posterity has in this new take will be in its usefulness as a masterclass in how not to remake a movie. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
19% Autumn in New York (2000) You can't help but be aware of the structural flaw in this tale of redemption. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
64% The Shape Of Things (2002) The great theme in LaBute's work is that every man is an island, and true relationships are therefore impossible. The advantage of that is that it's a brilliant allpurpose excuse for the writer's inability to develop character. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
79% Red Eye (2005) Red Eye is the best Hollywood can do: a nifty flick about nothing. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
73% Elephant (2003) Elephant is a cool, distant film, content for the most part to observe the routine of high-school life. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
89% Kandahar: Le soleil derrière la lune (2001) Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the Iranian director, has produced an inside-the-burqa look at women's life under the Taleban. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
28% Fun With Dick and Jane (2005) The final third of this movie isn't a remake of the original film but of the bland sappiness of the original kiddie books. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
85% The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) The 40-Year-Old Virgin knows what it's doing. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
54% Madagascar (2005) The animation is handsome and has a retro cool but, unless they figure out some way to get a story in there, this genre is showing signs of going the way of the musical. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
75% Big Fish (2003) Big Fish has a hook, a line, but it's a sinker. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
91% The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002) The directors know enough to stay in the background and their one stylistic touch is brilliantly appropriate. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
16% Alexander (2004) When you look at the bloated gleeful paranoia of JFK or the hallucinatory inflation of Natural Born Killers, who would have thought Stone would pick this subject to make a film that's so much smaller than life? - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
39% Meet the Fockers (2004) Every big comic setpiece plays like an idea for a comic setpiece rather than the finished article. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
61% Blue Crush (2002) Stockwell never manages to connect the water footage to the story, to make the waves a character or a metaphor for what's happening on land - except in the sense that this film is never wetter than when it gets out of the ocean and back to the plot. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
86% The Quiet American (2003) You can't capture that prescience in a remake half-a-century on. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
10% Slackers (2002) For Mamie Van Doren's, think Harold and Maude with no humanity. For the whole picture, think American Pie with no laughs. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
46% Hidalgo (2004) The film itself can't seem to decide whether it's a Saturday morning serial for the kids, a new Indiana Jones, or something with a bit more dramatic heft - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
53% Josie and the Pussycats (2001) Actually, it's the dialogue that's jerkin'. The script has a stilted feel, and its funny lines aren't really funny, so that the actors have to stand there and declaim them as if thereby officially designating them as funny. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
50% The Producers (2005) The Producers is a wonderful elegy for a certain kind of comic sensibility. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
33% Tears of the Sun (2003) It has a rare attention to detail and a strong sense of place. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
30% Hollywood Homicide (2003) It's truly sad to see Ford reduced to this. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
95% Bowling for Columbine (2002) Whatever, dude. Unlike Moore, I have homes on both sides of the border and it's the Quebec one I keep locked. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
98% A Hard Day's Night (1964) Victor Spinetti has a terrific time as the temperamental TV director who dreads being exiled to doing the news in Welsh. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2018
54% Enemy at the Gates (2001) Everything in the movie is obstinately stupid. - The Spectator EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 29, 2018