Few Surprises in Deception

Movie reviews: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum can't save amnesia romance

(NEWSER) - In The Vow, Rachel McAdams plays a woman who must learn to love her husband again after amnesia wipes her memory. It's no surprise it was released ahead of Valentine's Day: It's pure mushiness, critics say.

• In the New York Daily News , Elizabeth Weitzman calls the film a "down-the-middle, by-the-numbers fantasy, in which no one is too quirky or interesting or challenging in any way." Still, "there’s no shortage of viewers ready to embrace an old-fashioned, guilty-pleasure romance."

Daniel Radcliffe makes post-Hogwarts debut

(NEWSER) - The boy wizard is back—but this time, he's a 19th-century gentleman. Daniel Radcliffe is generally successful playing a spooked lawyer in The Woman in Black, a throwback haunted house thriller. What the critics are saying:

• The film "makes the most of its old-fashioned virtues," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times . It "isn’t especially scary, but it keeps you on edge, and without the usual vivisectionist imagery." For his part, Radcliffe "has the haunted eyes of the eternal mourner."

But the rest of the movie is pretty slight

(NEWSER) - Critics are positively giddy about Michelle Williams' performance in My Week With Marilyn, a new comedy based on Colin Clark's memoir about the week he spent at a cabin getaway with Marilyn Monroe. Here's what the critics are saying: More»

Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams wow, but not everyone's convinced

(NEWSER) - Some critics are raving over Blue Valentine, a harrowing tale in which Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play a couple ripping apart at the seams. But not everyone is impressed with the film (whose infamous oral sex scene has gotten plenty of press).

• “This wrenching story of a marriage that rides a roller coaster for six tumultuous years is not to be missed,” writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone . “Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams give two of the most explosive and emotionally naked performances you will see anywhere.”
• "This is the kind of movie about marriage Americans don't usually make," writes Dana Stevens for Slate . "Although the violence is almost entirely emotional, you walk out as devastated as if you'd seen a war picture."

True story of gay con-man highly divisive

(NEWSER) - Some critics are head-over-heels for I Love You Phillip Morris; others feel quite the opposite about the film, in which Jim Carrey plays a gay conman. (It's currently favored by 76% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences give it a lesser 55%.)

• At the New York Times , Stephen Holden loves the picture: “With his manic glare, ferociously eager smile, hyperkinetic body language and talent for instant self-transformation, Mr. Carrey has rarely been more charismatic on the screen.”