This might have been better as an intimate drama about mental illness and it doesn't have time to explore all of its themes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 24, 2018

It's a bummer of a movie -- dark and at cross-purposes with both itself and any image do-over [Gibson] might be seeking.

Full Review | Oct 7, 2011

This is a wholly wasted opportunity for Gibson -- and a disappointing misfire from Foster.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Aug 1, 2011

Foster's curious movie is at once a realisation of the kind of "risky" script that never gets made and an unwitting signifier of typical Hollywood contrivance.

Full Review | Jun 21, 2011

It isn't offensive, or antisemitic, or actionable, so there's some relief -- but it is very embarrassing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 17, 2011

Contrived, self-admiring and self-pitying, unfunny, burdened with a central performance which is unendurably conceited and charmless.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 16, 2011

Fitfully compelling, a welcome antidote to more formulaic Hollywood fare, and deserving of more than embarrassed sniggers.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 16, 2011

It's commendable to capture depression on film, but a talking rodent and a fallen star aren't the way to do so.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 16, 2011

A story that should be savagely funny and tauntingly surreal, at least for part of its arc, drifts into problem-of-the-week terrain.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 15, 2011

Beyond the initial idea, this is kid gloves filmmaking, when what we need is a bit more of the gloves-off stuff.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 15, 2011

It never quite comes together in a satisfying way, but it's still a brave, strange, brain-stirring piece of filmmaking.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 13, 2011

I'm still hoping for a sequel in which Jodie gives Mel a puppet cockerel.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 12, 2011

But the movie ends spectacularly, and is filled with wonderfully nuanced and three-dimensional performances from Gibson, Yelchin and Lawrence that are undeniably fantastic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 3, 2011

The acting throughout -- Foster, Lawrence, Yelchin -- is superb, and this may well be Gibson's finest performance, just as it's Foster's most balanced job of directing.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | May 20, 2011

The film is amusing, then melancholy, then weirdly funny, then not. It's a quiet, measured work.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 20, 2011

With The Beaver, Gibson shows that for all his personal turmoil, he still may have a career in the twilight years.

Full Review | May 20, 2011

For all his recent travails, Gibson remains a formidable film-maker (Apocalypto was a tour de force) and a strong screen presence. He is simply not right for his role here.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 20, 2011

For a film about the real problem of mental illness, it never feels authentic. Depression is not something neatly tied up. If this is meant as an allegory, it's vague and unconvincing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 20, 2011

Gibson's performance as Walter Black ranks among the best of his career.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 19, 2011

The main problem with the film, competently but rather blandly directed by Foster, is that you can't believe this fairy tale for a moment.

Full Review | May 17, 2011