David Germain
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Hubble (2010) |
The view is humbling and heavenly enough to make you feel puny and exhilarated at the same time. - Associated Press
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| Posted Sep 23, 2020
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The Story of Us (1999) |
A funny, teary, endearing movie that marks [Rob Reiner's] return to the romantic comedy formula he mined so well in When Harry Met Sally. - Associated Press
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| Posted Apr 07, 2020
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Ice Princess (2005) |
There's nothing wrong with that old fashioned, squeaky-clean Disney formula. When it's well done, it can be a refreshing break from the crude comedy of most family films today. Yet Ice Princess is not particularly well done. - Associated Press
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| Posted Mar 22, 2019
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The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) |
The sumptuous production, eclectic score, grand performances and engrossing moments of suspense make Ripley one the year's finer offerings. - Associated Press
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| Posted Feb 21, 2019
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Radio (2003) |
Gooding and Harris' characters are too pure and high-minded to exist in the real world. Yet the small-town sense of community and compassion they evoke is so goodhearted, the movie manages an amiable, if fleeting, rise in spirits. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 12, 2018
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Runaway Jury (2003) |
Director Gary Fleder's brisk, assured pacing also makes the implausibilities go down easier. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 12, 2018
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Mystic River (2003) |
Eastwood and his actors create a brooding drama whose events and interrelationships seem surreally improbable yet painfully authentic. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 12, 2018
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Being John Malkovich (1999) |
Fabulously funny and delightfully disturbed, "Being John Malkovich'' is the ultimate voyeur movie, a dark and at times malevolent take on what it's like to be in someone else's skull, looking out. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jun 12, 2018
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The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000) |
While the movie continually teeters on the brink of abject corniness, it never quite topples off. And it doesn't hurt to have Robert De Niro, Rene Russo and Jason Alexander camping it up as cartoon villains come to life. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jan 18, 2018
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Hannibal (2001) |
The story line of Hannibal is far less interesting than Silence of the Lambs and lacks the emotional subtlety of its predecessor. However, Hannibal is visually and aurally sumptuous, powered by Hans Zimmer's lovely score and brimming with flashy imagery. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jan 18, 2018
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Say It Isn't So (2001) |
Like the failed humor, the sight gags aren't so much bad taste as merely bad. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jan 18, 2018
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Chuck & Buck (2000) |
Chuck & Buck is a dark misfit of a movie that's sweet, scary, thought-provoking and off-putting all in one package. It's a bold, original achievement. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jan 18, 2018
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The Contender (2000) |
The movie has plenty going for it: a terrific cast led by Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Gary Oldman, a captivating story line, a sharp script. Most important, The Contender has timing. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jan 18, 2018
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Rent (2005) |
High hopes, flat results. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jan 17, 2018
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Sleepover (2004) |
Sleepover objectifies early teenage girls in a manner that's disagreeable and indelicate at best, cheap and vulgar at worst. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jan 17, 2018
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X2 (2003) |
Performances are solid throughout, with the actors managing to straight-face their way through some truly inane dialogue. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jul 14, 2015
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Blade II (2002) |
Blade II is a better vampire movie than recent entries such as Queen of the Damned or Dracula 2000. That said, Wesley Snipes' return as slayer of the undead still is fairly anemic. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jul 14, 2015
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Saw (2004) |
How such a cruelly empty and infantile movie got made is mystery enough. More puzzling is why Cary Elwes, Danny Glover and Monica Potter would sign on as co-stars. - Associated Press
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| Posted Oct 27, 2014
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Bad Boys II (2003) |
Producer Bruckheimer and director Bay have sunk to a new low for irresponsible, inhuman violence, dragging Will Smith and Martin Lawrence along for a ghastly, deafening display of bloodshed. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jun 06, 2014
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Pearl Harbor (2001) |
For all the 118 actors listed, the movie offers almost no sense of authentic humanity. The faces the filmmakers plaster on their characters are as flat and stereotyped as those on war-recruitment posters. - Associated Press
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| Posted May 27, 2014
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The Rookie (2002) |
Morris ultimately lasted two partial seasons in the majors, and the film's rendering of his minor-league struggle is so enjoyable you want to see more of that and less of the everyday life preceding it. - Associated Press
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| Posted May 12, 2014
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The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) |
While the situations sometimes feel forced, Anderson has mounted an elegant production, beautifully filmed and accentuated by pleasant narration from Alec Baldwin and classy storybook transitions. - Associated Press
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| Posted Mar 04, 2014
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The Polar Express (2004) |
People in Hollywood should never work with children or animals, W.C. Fields once said. Maybe that should be expanded to hyper-realistic computer-generated children and reindeer, too. - Associated Press
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| Posted Dec 09, 2013
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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) |
Part two is more a straight-ahead action flick, substituting brawn and brawling for the pastoral radiance of the first film. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 19, 2013
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Howl's Moving Castle (2004) |
A strange delight awash in visual splendor, understated humor and clever body-and-soul transmogrifications among its bonny band of weirdos. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 19, 2013
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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) |
With The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Peter Jackson delivers a decent ending to his fantasy trilogy -- actually, about 12 endings. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 19, 2013
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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) |
Masterfully paced, the movie builds slowly, introducing the mythology, habitats and lifestyles of Tolkien's creatures. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 18, 2013
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Insomnia (2002) |
The highlight is Pacino, who gives his best performance in years. - Associated Press
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| Posted Aug 05, 2013
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Finding Nemo (2003) |
Finding Nemo is laced with smart humor and clever gags, and buoyed by another cheery story of mismatched buddies: a pair of fish voiced by Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres. - Associated Press
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| Posted Aug 05, 2013
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Spider-Man (2002) |
With earnest, unpretentious delivery, Maguire is an eminently likable hero audiences will root for from his earliest moments as the class wimp. - Associated Press
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| Posted Aug 03, 2013
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The Perfect Man (2005) |
The movie is a toxic buzz of sweetness that Duff's teen gal fans might lap up, while all others suffer through a prolonged sugar fit. - Associated Press
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| Posted Jun 07, 2013
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Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) |
An excessively derivative what-if rehash of themes and interactions that came before, most of the characters lesser copies and even caricatures of the originals. - Associated Press
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| Posted May 14, 2013
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Peeples (2013) |
These all are amiable people, decent people, sometimes funny people. But unfortunately, the peeps of ''Peeples'' just aren't very memorable people. - Associated Press
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| Posted May 08, 2013
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Pain & Gain (2013) |
All but the faintest flashes of humanity and pathos are flattened by the cinematic cyclone that is Michael Bay. - Associated Press
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| Posted Apr 24, 2013
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Sin City (2005) |
With a huge, well-chosen cast and the blessing of Miller, who was on set as Rodriguez's co-director, Sin City is a gloriously stylized world unlike anything you've seen before on screen. - Associated Press
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| Posted Apr 14, 2013
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42 (2013) |
For all the hate and hostility it depicts, 42 is a film about decent-hearted people. Hate can be infectious, but so can decency. It's the decency you'll take away from 42. - Associated Press
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| Posted Apr 10, 2013
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Rollerball (2002) |
Loud, crude and outlandish, Rollerball is a parody of itself, a frenzy of extreme-sports stunts masquerading as social commentary on violence and the corporate forces that feed off it. - Associated Press
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| Posted Mar 26, 2013
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Fever Pitch (2005) |
Stripped of almost all the brothers' usual crudeness, Fever Pitch proves what we've suspected all along: That beneath the gross-out gags and freak-show humor, Peter and Bobby Farrelly are just a couple of lovable romantics. - Associated Press
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| Posted Mar 20, 2013
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Million Dollar Baby (2004) |
Barely a year after the release of Mystic River, Clint Eastwood delivers a second consecutive drama that fearlessly probes the shadows of human morality without falling back on easy answers. - Associated Press
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| Posted Feb 24, 2013
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Gladiator (2000) |
Time for a little gladiatorial gore with your Milk Duds. Gladiator is here, and it's big, glorious and eminently dumb. - Associated Press
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| Posted Feb 24, 2013
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West of Memphis (2012) |
"West of Memphis" is nonfiction filmmaking at its best, a film with a fierce point of view yet one that doesn't pretend to have all the answers or a monopoly on truth. - Associated Press
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| Posted Dec 21, 2012
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Django Unchained (2012) |
''Django Unchained'' is Tarantino at his most puerile and least inventive, the premise offering little more than cold, nasty revenge and barrels of squishing, squirting blood. - Associated Press
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| Posted Dec 21, 2012
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Not Fade Away (2012) |
If you weren't in a failed band yourself, you know people who were, and Chase's story IS their story, if not in the particulars, then in the spirit and the passion. The music may fade, but what's behind it never does. - Associated Press
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| Posted Dec 19, 2012
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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) |
Tolkien's brisk story of intrepid little hobbit Bilbo Baggins is drawn out and diluted by dispensable trimmings better left for DVD extras. - Associated Press
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| Posted Dec 04, 2012
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Pan's Labyrinth (2006) |
Guillermo del Toro has crafted a masterpiece, a terrifying, visually wondrous fairy tale for adults that blends fantasy and gloomy drama into one of the most magical films to come along in years. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 26, 2012
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Hitchcock (2012) |
If "Hitchcock" ultimately feels inconsequential, it always aims to please, and for the most part, it does. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 19, 2012
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Life of Pi (2012) |
Lee and screenwriter David Magee find rich and clever ways to translate even Pi's stillest moments, the film unfolding through intricate flashbacks, whimsical voice-overs, harrowing sea hazards and exquisite flashes of fantasy and hallucination. - Associated Press
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| Posted Nov 19, 2012
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Alex Cross (2012) |
Casting Perry as Cross was a bad idea, though it's not necessarily the worst in a movie built on bad ideas. - Associated Press
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| Posted Oct 17, 2012
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Here Comes the Boom (2012) |
When [James] starts winning some bouts and becoming a contender, the movie's credibility skyrockets into "Rocky" territory and beyond. - Associated Press
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| Posted Oct 10, 2012
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Won't Back Down (2012) |
"Won't Back Down" lives down to its bland, us-against-them title with a simple-minded assault on the ills of public schools that lumbers along like a math class droning multiplication tables. - Associated Press
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| Posted Sep 26, 2012
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