Movie Reviews

He may be 83, but in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead , Sidney Lumet musters the “wide-awake elegance of a virtuoso half his age,” EW' s Owen Gleiberman says, producing a vivid crime melodrama critics unanimously place among the year’s best. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play brothers whose botched robbery of their parents’ store “approaches the scope of Greek tragedy,” Slate's Dana Stevens says. More »

Reaction's to Steve Carell's genial comedy Dan in Real Life range from appreciative to underwhelmed. AO Scott of the New York Times calls the film—starring Carell as a recent widower and advice columnist—"for the most part, winningly gentle and observant." Roger Ebert calls it "soothingly pleasant." Others find it too soothing. "Sorry, folks: Nothing to see here," writes Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post . More »

Hollywood is in mourning. Films like Gone Baby Gone, In the Valley of Elah, and Reservation Road all feature parents grieving over lost or dead children, railing at authority and looking for someone to blame. NPR’s Bob Mondello sees a theme here very different from the usual practice of endangering children so heroes can save them. These films are not about heroism, he notes. They're about grief. More »

Ben Affleck “emerges triumphant” from his directorial debut, Rolling Stone says in reviewing Gone Baby Gone , out today and already a critics' darling. “It's one of the best crime movies of this decade,” the Hollywood Reporter raves. Younger brother Casey stars as a PI searching for a missing girl in a story brimming with “genuine moral complexity,” the Village Voice says. More »

Rendition, the story of an American woman's search for her arrested Egyptian-born husband, is a well-meaning but ultimately shallow exploration of America's policies on torture, critics say. " Rendition tackles the concern in a heavy-handed thriller with simplistic characters and manipulative storylines," says the Hollywood Reporter. More »

Things We Lost in the Fire, the weepie opening today and starring Halle Berry as a newly bereaved widow and Benicio Del Toro as her heroin-addicted comforter, draws mixed reviews. Most agree with the Chicago Tribune that it's "consistently well acted," awarding special praise to Del Toro. But the movie gets no points for originality. More »

No one feels too strongly about We Own the Night, a crime drama Variety calls “exceptionally conventional.” It delivers “jolts of pulse-quickening drama,” the Inquirer says, complete with a rainy car chase every reviewer loved. Beyond that, “reactions will depend greatly upon one's tolerance for dramatic implausibilities, plot loopholes, emotional clichés, and period anachronisms,” Variety says. More »

Nobody can bear to say a bad word about Cate Blanchett, star of Elizabeth: The Golden Age ," despite agreeing that the film itself is a big gooey mess. "Cate Blanchett can do anything," writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone , "but she can't save this creaky sequel." Most agree with Roger Ebert: "We lose sight of the humans behind the dazzle of the production." More »

It might sound like a familiar corporate thriller—a court case, dark secrets, attacks of conscience—but Entertainment Weekly says Michael Clayton makes it all seem fresh, calling it “better than good.” It’s no Erin Brockovich , raves Slate , fading white and black hats to gray. And George Clooney's performance has critics thinking Oscar. More »

The Kingdom , starring Jamie Foxx and directed by Peter Berg, wants to be a thoughtful action movie about terrorism—part Rambo , part Syriana , muses the Washington Post . Instead, Newsday says, it's a “clamorous and patronizing” popcorn flick, that EW calls “shameless” in pushing audiences’ buttons. More »

Eastern Promises , like director David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence before it, is a crime thriller starring Viggo Mortensen. And like Violence , critics love it. Its Russian mobsters transplanted to London are not characters, Roger Ebert raves, but “plausible human beings.” Mortensen stands out, having “just the ratio of machine to mortal that Cronenberg requires,” says the New Yorker ’s Anthony Lane. More »

I'm Not There , director Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan biopic, has gained at least one fan in the Telegraph 's David Gritten. More "symbolist poem" than conventional biography, the film portrays Dylan in various guises, including an 11-year-old black actor and Cate Blanchett in the film's "tour de force." Among other embodiments: Richard Gere as Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid. More »

The newsroom-meets-boxing-ring drama "Resurrecting the Champ" is slow on its feet, critics say, weighed down by its own sentimentality, despite a powerful performance by Samuel L. Jackson—"slumming again in a role miles beneath him," writes Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post —and a taste of the nuts and bolts of journalism.  More »

One-dimensional characters and wooden acting cripple "The Nanny Diaries," critics say, calling the lavishly appointed frustrated-underling tale similar to "The Devil Wears Prada" in everything except quality. "They should've thrown everything away except the title and the outline," writes Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune . More »

Superbad, the tale of two high school seniors' attempts to get laid in a single day and night, is an honest teen comedy in the mold of recent movies that are foul-mouthed and raunchy but actually kind of sweet, critics say. Says Carina Chocano of the LA Times, "for a film so deliriously smutty, 'Superbad' is supercute." More »

Legendary martial artist Jackie Chan teams up with peppy funnyman Chris Tucker for the third time since 1998 in Rush Hour 3, but critics are panning the film, opening today, as a flat-tire addition to the buddy-comedy franchise. "It’s a generically crummy action flick. It’s ugly. It’s noisy. It’s stupid," declares Manohla Dargis of the New York Times . More »

America's favorite amnesiac CIA agent, Jason Bourne, is caught up again in fast-paced and far-flung action in the thinking-man's thriller threequel The Bourne Ultimatum , which critics gave high marks for both psychological acuity and adrenaline. The New York Post calls Ultimatum a "potent PowerBar of a movie—all protein and no fat." More »

Critics are overwhelmingly pleased by The Simpsons Movie , even if they agree it doesn't push the envelope further than usual. By all accounts, rapid-fire sight gags and one-liners keep diehards and casual fans alike in giggles. Even naysayers, like the LA Times, don't argue it's not funny, just that it doesn't go far enough: "It doesn't take the gloves off." More »

With its cheerfully loony evocation of the 60s, "Hairspray" has scored big with reviewers. "The movie's style and exuberance torpedoed my misgivings within seconds," says the LATimes . The movie-turned-musical-turned-movie is also being praised for its star turns, by a fatsuited John Travolta and plump newcomer Nikki Blonsky.  More »

Holy Quidditch! Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix flies onto the silver screen tomorrow just two weeks before the ballyhooed release of the final book of the wizard saga. It seems to have cast a spell on critics, like Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, who says it will "keep you riveted" with a "pulse-quickening urgency." More »