The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
All Critics (24) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (2) | DVD (9)
Despite that it's a slow starter, the picture, from the beginning, leaves a strong impact and, before too long, develops into the type of suspenseful product with which Hitchcock has always been identified.
That old master of screen melodrama, Alfred Hitchcock, and Writer John Steinbeck have combined their distinctive talents in a tremendously provocative film.
The characters are reasonably free of cliched personalities, so what happens between them is rarely predictable, and there are enough crises and tensions within the 96-minute running time to hold a viewer fully attentive.
At times, the film seems on the verge of rising above its frankly propagandistic intentions, but it never really confronts the Darwinian themes built into the material.
Saddled with as thin a premise as one could envision, Lifeboat ultimately comes off as a disappointing endeavor that boasts few elements designed to capture and sustain the viewer's interest...
...one of Hitchcock's significant works, accented by wickedly effective insert shots and a handful of strong performances.
Here is the closest the director probably ever came to making an insightful statement about the dreadful world he and his peers lived in.
Hitchcock's answer to the perpetual film school dilemma of making a movie on a boat as one of a filmmaker's biggest challenges, is a textbook example of how it's done right.
"It's based on the story by John Steinbeck, who wanted to show the Nazis as single-minded brutes with no redeeming human qualities.
Only Hitchcock could pull off this compelling drama in such tight quarters!
It's a technical tour-de-force.
Hitchcock's shifting sympathies guarantee our guilty involvement with the characters until he builds to a climax of intellectual and spiritual excitation.
An engaging chamber movie in which all action takes place inside a lifeboat, impressing us most with its technical achievement (if there was any doubt about Hitchcock's directing skills before it, this film certainly removed it) and Tallulah Bankhead standing out in a great cast.
Super Reviewer
Hitch was still only pleasing the masses (and not flagrantly indulging his own peccadillos as openly as yet), and here is an exemplary example of him at his best. Grim survival is the game, and survival in a group, with a group, only somebody's not playing fair ... riveting from opening credits to coda. Highly recommended (as a buddy of mine is fond of saying, but I'm not sayin' who).
Not one of Hitchcock's best but still worth watching
Though inevitably a minor work for Hitchcock. you've gotta give it to him for stepping outside the box to create a very enjoyable film.
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