The Atlantic

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating Title/Year Author
The Lodge (2019) David Sims When all its ominous frights flame out in narrative chaos, The Lodge becomes a bore, more invested in the ghoulishness of its final reveal. EDIT
Posted Feb 13, 2020
Downhill (2020) David Sims I cannot in good conscience recommend buying a ticket to see it when Force Majeure is easily available to rent. EDIT
Posted Feb 13, 2020
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) David Sims It's not the cavalcade of horror promised by that first trailer, but rather the kind of bad movie one forgets instantly upon leaving the theater. EDIT
Posted Feb 13, 2020
The Gentlemen (2020) David Sims For all its energy and vulgarity, The Gentlemen is a slog, a tedious and unnecessarily unpleasant tour of ground that Ritchie's already covered. EDIT
Posted Feb 6, 2020
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) David Sims A mostly satisfactory amusement-park ride. EDIT
Posted Feb 6, 2020
The Assistant (2019) David Sims The Assistant is like a horror movie with a dose of Kafkaesque surrealism: A series of menial chores in service of a person so monstrous the camera literally cannot face him. EDIT
Posted Feb 1, 2020
Taylor Swift: Miss Americana (2020) Spencer Kornhaber Here is the engine of Swift's narrative: Swift's desire to be liked colliding with people not liking her. It's the ultimate celebrity problem, but the doc is smart about injecting it with social meaning by making the case that it stems from gender. EDIT
Posted Jan 31, 2020
Weathering With You (2019) David Sims Vividly contemporary-not an archetypal fable, but rather a compelling yarn about young people trying to live and love in an often hostile world of grown-ups EDIT
Posted Jan 20, 2020
Dolittle (2020) David Sims One of the worst cinematic fiascos I've seen in years. EDIT
Posted Jan 16, 2020
Just Mercy (2019) David Sims The film's power lies in the brutality of its true story, and yet that narrative stays within fairly conventional bounds precisely because of Cretton's commitment to telling it. EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2020
Underwater (2020) David Sims If not for the unusual setting and Stewart's unique star presence, Underwater might feel completely anonymous. Fortunately, all that H2O suffices to give this goofy trifle a memorable sense of atmosphere. EDIT
Posted Jan 9, 2020
Cats (2019) David Sims Whether you think the imagery is beautiful or nightmarish, this is a film that demands to be looked at. EDIT
Posted Dec 30, 2019
Little Women (2019) David Sims Gerwig manages to honor both the letter and the spirit of Alcott's tale; Little Women is stuffed with trials and tribulations, yet overflowing with goodwill. EDIT
Posted Dec 26, 2019
Atlantics (2019) Hannah Giorgis [It] deftly melds fantasy and romance in a complex portrait of migration. EDIT
Posted Dec 23, 2019
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) David Sims The Rise of Skywalker is a fitting epitaph for the thrills and limits of repetition; may it be the last episode of a saga that should've ended long ago. EDIT
Posted Dec 18, 2019
A Hidden Life (2019) David Sims It's a decision Malick memorializes beautifully, in a film that is his most affecting effort in almost a decade. EDIT
Posted Dec 14, 2019
Uncut Gems (2019) David Sims The Safdies have a magic touch with unpleasantness. They can find pure human tragedy in the most baroque modern horrors, buried like diamonds within the rock. EDIT
Posted Dec 12, 2019
Richard Jewell (2019) David Sims Richard Jewell works because, decades after the incident, it's skeptical of the spotlight. EDIT
Posted Dec 10, 2019
The Aeronauts (2019) David Sims Yes, women belong in balloons. They also belong in good movies, and it's a shame this isn't one. EDIT
Posted Dec 10, 2019
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) David Sims In a film told with sweeping visual scope, Sciamma plunges the viewer into a story and setting of the deepest intimacy. EDIT
Posted Dec 4, 2019
The Two Popes (2019) David Sims The chemistry between the two leads is enough to recommend the film, but don't go into the theater expecting real historical insights. EDIT
Posted Nov 29, 2019
Knives Out (2019) David Sims In the hands of Craig at his most gleeful, de Armas at her career best, and Johnson oozing love for the genre, Knives Out rises splendidly to the task. EDIT
Posted Nov 27, 2019
Dark Waters (2019) David Sims Haynes also provides a sense of crushing dread-the kind of unsolvable paranoia these procedure-bound movies usually work to counter. EDIT
Posted Nov 26, 2019
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) David Sims It's a sincere, measured, and clever homage to its subject, a work of storytelling that would have made Mister Rogers proud. EDIT
Posted Nov 21, 2019
Ford v Ferrari (2019) David Sims Ford v Ferrari takes the straightforward ethos of car racing-where the winner is whoever is the fastest-and lays bare the egotism and greed required for such a triumph. EDIT
Posted Nov 16, 2019
Frozen II (2019) David Sims Frozen II sometimes gets impressionistic enough to reach the heights of its forebear. EDIT
Posted Nov 14, 2019
Doctor Sleep (2019) David Sims Doctor Sleep is wonderfully reverent when it comes to Kubrick's film, but that means it can't escape The Shining's shadow, no matter how much King might have wanted it to. EDIT
Posted Nov 8, 2019
Marriage Story (2019) David Sims Both halves of Marriage Story involve laughter and tears, but Baumbach concentrates on making each character feel distinct rather than syncing up their plot arcs. EDIT
Posted Nov 8, 2019
Last Christmas (2019) David Sims One's tolerance may vary when it comes to live singalongs of George Michael songs and tender family reconciliations, but I found myself won over. EDIT
Posted Nov 6, 2019
Daniel Sloss: X (2019) Sophie Gilbert Sloss knows that these confrontations are necessary, tedious, and painful. Rarely are they funny at all. That he manages to make X consistently so is a remarkable feat. EDIT
Posted Nov 6, 2019
Love Actually (2003) Christopher Orr The tagline for Love Actually is "The Ultimate Romantic Comedy." Perhaps. But not in the sense the producers intended. EDIT
Posted Nov 5, 2019
The Irishman (2019) David Sims The Irishman is a work of real retrospection. It's a stunning achievement, worthy of a great director's twilight years. EDIT
Posted Nov 1, 2019
Motherless Brooklyn (2019) David Sims At best, the socio-historical drama version of Motherless Brooklyn is an interesting idea for a movie-one that should have stayed on the page. EDIT
Posted Nov 1, 2019
Frankie (2019) David Sims A lovely if muted experience, in which moments of silence and tranquility communicate as much as the naturalistic dialogue. EDIT
Posted Oct 25, 2019
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) David Sims What distinguishes the latest effort, however, is the return of Hamilton-an actor whom each reboot ignored and undervalued. EDIT
Posted Oct 25, 2019
Jojo Rabbit (2019) David Sims Waititi is trying to strike an impossible balance here, and while he wins a few big battles, he ends up losing the war. EDIT
Posted Oct 18, 2019
The Lighthouse (2019) David Sims It's funny, high-spirited, and giddily loopy, a descent into madness told with the energy of a sea shanty. EDIT
Posted Oct 18, 2019
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) David Sims It's not a film that quite rises to the level of "good," but it is transfixing-a dizzying hodgepodge of ideas powered by the welcome return of Jolie to the big screen. EDIT
Posted Oct 16, 2019
The King (2019) David Sims To quote another of the Bard's royal characters, it ends up feeling like a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. EDIT
Posted Oct 16, 2019
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) Shirley Li Lives up to Breaking Bad's legacy of propulsive storytelling. The film is a visceral, ruminative, and emotionally satisfying epilogue EDIT
Posted Oct 11, 2019
Parasite (2019) David Sims All the viewer knows is that Bong is telling a story about humans, which means it can be a perfect comedy until it becomes a tragedy. EDIT
Posted Oct 10, 2019
Gemini Man (2019) David Sims Lee is innovating and looking backwards at the same time, and the viewing experience is as bewildering as that sounds. EDIT
Posted Oct 9, 2019
Dolemite Is My Name (2019) David Sims Murphy seems revitalized, and he gives this pleasant recounting of life on the Hollywood margins a jolt of energy anytime the camera is pointed his way. EDIT
Posted Oct 4, 2019
Joker (2019) David Sims As Joker gets grimmer and descends further into bloody violence, it becomes little more than a horror show, bludgeoning its viewers out of any chance at insight. EDIT
Posted Oct 2, 2019
Ad Astra (2019) David Sims The lesson of the film is a straightforward one-that in the future, people will still need to rely on one another-but Ad Astra communicates it with staggering profundity. EDIT
Posted Sep 18, 2019
Downton Abbey (2019) Sophie Gilbert I, too, got swept up in this Disney-movie fantasia of benevolent, gracious aristocrats and their plucky servants all working together to... serve dinner to the king. Downton does that to you. EDIT
Posted Sep 16, 2019
The Goldfinch (2019) David Sims The film suffers from both an excessive faithfulness to its source and a general failure to translate that material into anything close to a gripping onscreen narrative. EDIT
Posted Sep 15, 2019
Hustlers (2019) David Sims A lush, lavish joy that's difficult to forget. EDIT
Posted Sep 11, 2019
To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018) Hannah Giorgis Thrills in part because most viewers are all too familiar with what it feels like to baldly deny feelings for another person even as they become patently obvious to everyone else. EDIT
Posted Sep 9, 2019
Sorry to Bother You (2018) Hannah Giorgis Sorry to Bother You is as much a character-driven story about the gentrification of Oakland -- and the Bay Area writ large -- as it is an absurdist anti-capitalist fable. EDIT
Posted Sep 9, 2019