Matthew Lickona
Tomatometer-approved critic
Matthew Lickona has been a staff writer for the San Diego Reader since 1995, and a film critic for the paper since 2010.
Movies reviews only
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) |
Remarkably, given the studio brand: this is absolutely Gunn's movie. It's cheerfully gross, frequently hideous to behold, nakedly emotional, indulgent to the point of bloat in its desire to tie off every narrative thread...and, happily, its own thing. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted May 25, 2023
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Fast X (2023) |
It’s overlong and over-the-top, but the real trouble is that when a series like this starts acknowledging its its own absurdities, they become harder to enjoy. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted May 25, 2023
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Master Gardener (2022) |
The pleasure is not in the innovation, but in the variation. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted May 25, 2023
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The Little Mermaid (2023) |
Part of that world of lazy remakes, alas. At least Sebastian the crab is still fun. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted May 25, 2023
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Suzume (2022) |
It all makes for a fine adolescent adventure: travel, rebellion, unattainable love, a search, a chase, a deadline, and a little bit of growing up. And happily, the film understands that some problems don’t get resolved without real sacrifice. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Apr 27, 2023
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Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (2023) |
Director Guy Ritchie exercises considerable restraint in his depiction of action: again and again, he is content to pull back, hold the shot, and let what happens be enough to engage the viewer. And again and again, it's more than enough. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Apr 19, 2023
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Renfield (2023) |
Robert Kirkman’s story takes its pop psychology seriously, which is what makes its application here so much fun. When Cage bellows, “I’m the real victim here!” anyone who’s ever known a narcissist may find themselves wincing through the grin. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Apr 11, 2023
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Air (2023) |
Nostalgia is the only reason I can think of to explain why old friends Ben Affleck and Matt Damon reteamed for a movie that so artlessly sets out to make us love shoe company Nike for buttering up a college hoops star better than Adidas or Converse. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Apr 11, 2023
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Cocaine Bear (2023) |
Why does the bear kill everyone it meets during its drug rampage except for the one person it decides to kidnap? Why don’t people with guns shoot the bear when they have the chance? Because the movie needs to happen, that’s why! - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Creed III (2023) |
The two Final Fight combatants are fearsome and beautiful to behold, and Jordan does his best to get visually creative, but there’s more drama in the training montage — possibly because it’s the only place where his character feels vincible. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Sharper (2023) |
At one point, circumstances threaten to turn a con-artist caper into something more desperate and dangerous, but here as elsewhere, dramatic urgency is sacrificed in the twisty pursuit of cleverness. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Feb 18, 2023
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Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) |
And yet, there it was, that thought, overarching and overwhelming: “I didn’t feel a thing.” - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Feb 18, 2023
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M3GAN (2022) |
Machine learning may one day be the death of us all, but we’re still far enough out from the Rise of the Machines to indulge a wry chuckle at the prospect. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Jan 13, 2023
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Babylon (2022) |
Long and frequently unpleasant, but at least there’s a point to all that decadence and despair: first time as tragedy, second time as hit musical. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Dec 23, 2022
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Empire of Light (2022) |
Late in the film, Hilary asks projectionist Norman (Toby Young, appealing) why he made a particular momentous decision; his mystified reply may match the viewer’s own as to what Mendes had in mind here. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Dec 21, 2022
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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) |
It would be missing the point to call the proceedings indulgent to the point of self-infatuation: Cameron has built a new world from the remixed bits of this one, and he seems determined that we should not simply visit Pandora, we should live in it. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Dec 21, 2022
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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) |
It’s deep without putting on airs, moving without reaching for sentiment, and intimate without becoming insular. It’s good, is what I’m saying. - National Review
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| Posted Oct 29, 2022
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Ticket to Paradise (2022) |
The problem is that the movie is much more interested in the comedy of the rom-com than in the romance, but the setup demands something a little more serious than a sabotaged ring ceremony and its ensuing complications. - National Review
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| Posted Oct 25, 2022
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Blonde (2022) |
Dominik keeps up the violent destruction of those Marilyn moments precisely because we persist in maintaining their glamour. I can imagine him snarling, “You think Blonde is exploitative? Not a bit. ‘Candle in the Wind’ — now that’s exploitative.” - National Review
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| Posted Oct 02, 2022
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Don't Worry Darling (2022) |
It’s statement first, and story second. It’s a shame, because once you get past the thematic thud, there are good things here, good things beyond the lovely look and Pugh’s power. - National Review
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| Posted Sep 25, 2022
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Barbarian (2022) |
Pleasingly intelligent about how it manifests its themes, and confident enough in the horror of its proceedings to eschew jump scares and gratuitous grossness. Mind you, Barbarian gets gross, but it earns it. - National Review
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| Posted Sep 10, 2022
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Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) |
It doesn’t help that the ending is downright sensible, not after all the mad grandeur we’ve just glimpsed. I left impressed by Miller’s world but unconvinced by his message. I wanted, even longed for, more. - National Review
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| Posted Sep 03, 2022
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Breaking (2022) |
That’s the power of Breaking: a good man doing something he knows is dangerous but that he doesn’t really think is wrong... It’s a force that’s blunted by a discursive style that is almost but not quite overcome by its lead. - National Review
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| Posted Aug 26, 2022
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Beast (2022) |
Overall, Beast was good enough, gripping enough, and engaging enough that hashing out just how it might have ended [differently], and how the various narrative threads might have been better tied up, made for good conversation. - National Review
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| Posted Aug 19, 2022
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Summering (2022) |
Things happen, and there’s a story, but Ponsoldt seems almost wholly uninterested in the events on-screen. What he seems to be after is what those events signify. - National Review
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| Posted Aug 13, 2022
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Bullet Train (2022) |
I will not use the term “train wreck.” But by the end, the joke is on anyone who was looking for something more than a wild ride. - National Review
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| Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Driveways (2019) |
This is one of those quiet gems where we get dropped into the lives of a handful of characters at what turns out to be a crucial turning point in all their lives. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted May 08, 2020
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) |
When we meet up with brash pilot Poe, he's lightspeed-skipping his way out of trouble, and Abrams is in much the same mode, whisking you from one thing to the next before you have much time to think or feel anything in response. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Dec 20, 2019
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Frozen II (2019) |
Not much gain against a good deal of loss. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Nov 22, 2019
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Ford v Ferrari (2019) |
Think Iron Man and Captain America, only it's a (mostly) true story and what's at stake is not the fate of the universe, nor even an auto race, but the glorious, endless pursuit of perfection. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Nov 22, 2019
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Harriet (2019) |
The gospel songs are gorgeously performed and cleverly deployed, but the rest of the soundtrack makes an absolute mess of the film's mood: swoopy where it should be driven, wistful where it should be achingly tense. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Nov 01, 2019
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Jojo Rabbit (2019) |
There's a deep and sincere sweetness in the work of writer-director Taika Waititi. It's a kind of relentless and innocent good cheer that persists in the face of horror - to the point where the horror is obscured, or maybe defanged. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Nov 01, 2019
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The Lighthouse (2019) |
It's rough going, but it's beautifully filmed and framed in black and white, and Dafoe is wild and wildly entertaining in a role that feels written to match his every aspect. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Oct 25, 2019
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Cyrano, My Love (2018) |
For us to care about the froth, we need a proper sense of the churning that creates it. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Oct 25, 2019
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Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) |
And [Jolie] is a star here: something amazing to behold, an Old Hollywood glamour shot come to...well, not exactly come to life, but mobile, anyway. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Oct 18, 2019
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Pain and Glory (2019) |
There's plenty of artfulness on display in the intertwining of life and what gets made of it, but also a fair helping of artifice. Art imitating life, but also improving it a bit. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Oct 18, 2019
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Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins (2019) |
Janice Engel's loving portrait of perhaps the most famous liberal journalist in Texas history (there must be a few others, right?) feels a bit like a pitch for a biopic. That is to say, it's more portrait than story. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Oct 12, 2019
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Gemini Man (2019) |
The same High Frame Rate that make the actors look like they're on Days of Our Lives makes the colors absolutely pop. And those textures on the skulls in the underground ossuary fight scene! It's cooler than the action, anyway. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Oct 12, 2019
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First Love (2019) |
What keeps it from becoming a bloody farce is Miike's profound sympathy for his leads, innocents trying to find their way out of the maelstrom. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Oct 04, 2019
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Joker (2019) |
If there is a meaningful difference between performing and acting, Joaquin Phoenix surely exemplifies the former here, creepily contorting as the Clown Prince of Crime in Todd Phillips' timely, toxic take on the Making of a Murdering Madman. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Oct 04, 2019
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Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (2019) |
The result, for the most part, is pleasant and informative, if not particularly inspiring or revelatory. But now and then, the music and images can't help but break through. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Sep 28, 2019
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Downton Abbey (2019) |
A soufflé is a light and airy confection of unvaryingly smooth consistency, and so is director Michael Engler's movie...everything whipped into a perfect, bland uniformity. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Sep 20, 2019
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The Sound of Silence (2019) |
Lucian is a man with a theory, desperate to extrapolate from what he knows is true to what it might imply, and if you've ever known such a man, you will likely appreciate Sarsgaard's performance - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Sep 20, 2019
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The Goldfinch (2019) |
There are ideas at work here, about providence and salvation (or at least their secular counterparts), about civilization and the worthwhile work of preserving it, and about defining moments and our response to them. But there isn't much of a movie. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Sep 13, 2019
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Vita & Virginia (2018) |
It's never a good sign for your rulebreaking romance when the occasional bits of dialogue between wayward wives and their sad husbands is more human, more feeling, and more emotionally intelligible than that between the lesbian lovers. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Sep 06, 2019
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Los Reyes (2018) |
It's a clever portrait of masculine drift, approached in sly and sidelong fashion: as background to the peaceful days of two happy mammals who never give thought to the approaching and encircling flies. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Sep 06, 2019
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Love, Antosha (2019) |
The title is how the immigrant's child closed his frequent and heartfelt letters to his fiercely devoted mother Irina, and the film plays a bit like her loving reply: a tribute to the son whose grave she still visits daily. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Aug 23, 2019
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The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) |
Writer-directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz team up to bring you what is quite possibly the feel-good movie of the year, for good and ill. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Aug 23, 2019
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One Child Nation (2019) |
As a rule, talking heads do not make for compelling film. But such heads, and such talk. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Aug 16, 2019
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The Divine Fury (2019) |
What surprises there are are mostly of the pleasant variety, starting with the tone of intelligent sincerity alongside the glowing red pupils and projectile vomiting. - San Diego Reader
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| Posted Aug 16, 2019
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