- Apt Pupil directed by Bryan Singer (1998)
[6/10]
"Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro provide the life force in Apt Pupil, but even with such good efforts, the final act leaves us wanting more."
- Barnyard directed by Steve Oedekerk (2006)
[3/10]
"Imagine that Gary Larson had made a feature length version of his sentient cows from the 'Far Side' comics, then you might have an idea of what director Steve Oedekerk attempted with Barnyard."
- Brokeback Mountain directed by Ang Lee (2005)
[10/10]
"All the elements of Brokeback Mountain come together to create a transcendent experience that lingers in your mind for days after you watch the film."
- Cooler Climate, A directed by Susan Seidelman (1999)
[6/10]
"A Cooler Climate promotes the standard American dream: with the right combination of attitude, determination, and skill you can achieve just about anything. Too bad so many of the characters had to explore immoral options before coming about."
- Dead Zone, The directed by David Cronenberg (1983)
[6/10]
"As a Stephen King adaptation, I'd have to say this one does an excellent job of creating a believable world where you can accept the characters as people and believe in the character's strange abilities."
- Deep Impact directed by Mimi Leder (1998)
[5/10]
"In spite of cheap effects and attempts to create emotion, I liked the movie and its attempt to show that you can choose to be a good person even when faced with the knowledge of your almost certain demise."
- Dreamgirls directed by Bill Condon (2006)
[7/10]
"Dreamgirls provides a fun, musical and visual experience without a whole lot of character depth. Tap your toe, enjoy the fun, but don't look too deeply into the storyline."
- Elizabethtown directed by Cameron Crowe (2005)
[7/10]
"I found Elizabethtown an enjoyable, pleasant, interesting, and funny study of Drew's developing character."
- Enemy at the Gates directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud (2001)
[8/10]
"Vassili Zaitsev shot 149 Germans during the 1942 battle for Stalingrad. Enemy at the Gates depicts Vassili and his legendary duel with the German sniper Major Konig."
- Golden Child, The directed by Michael Ritchie (1986)
[5/10]
"Generally funny, but not riotously so."
- Kung Fu Panda directed by Mark Osborne, John Stevenson (2008)
[6/10]
"Watching Kung Fu Panda, I came to the realization that animated martial arts just don't impress me. No one had to study for years in order to make the amazing moves demonstrated on the screen. Instead, the characters were just drawn that way."
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider directed by Simon West (2001)
[5/10]
"You get lots of action, and you get to watch a shapely heroine blast away tons of bad guys and a few animated stone creatures, but you can put your brain on vacation and just let your testosterone enjoy this one."
- Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events directed by Brad Silberling (2004)
[7/10]
"In most cases where I have both read the book and seen the movie adaptation, I recommend the book as the better experience. In the case of A Series of Unfortunate Events, I have to recommend the movie over the books."
- Mission: Impossible directed by Brian De Palma (1996)
[6/10]
"I can understand killing off one or two of the team members to provide a revenge motivation for the rest of the team, but killing off the entire team, including Phelps, departs so radically from the traditions of the TV series, that only the first twenty minutes really deserve the name Mission: Impossible."
- Nacho Libre directed by Jared Hess (2006)
[5/10]
"It has some memorable lines, but the plot meanders without much drive or purpose and may go down as one of Black's low points in his career."
- Rosemary's Baby directed by Roman Polanski (1968)
[8/10]
"Rosemary's Baby creates a very creepy film that builds to a frenetic pitch toward the end through a clever arrangement of finding evil in everyday events such as dinners with the neighbors, conversations in the laundry room, and doctor's visits."
- War of the Worlds, The directed by Byron Haskin (1953)
[7/10]
"By today's standards, The War of the Worlds has pretty unbelievable effects, but you can tell that Haskin took enormous care with the effects available to him at the time. The effects do work well to establish the deadly nature of the Martians and the unbelievable firepower they could produce with even just a single craft."
- War of the Worlds directed by Steven Spielberg (2005)
[7/10]
"When a story remains popular for over a hundred years, clearly the elements strike a chord in the human psyche, and who better than Stephen Spielberg to know how to make a movie that resonates that chord in modern audiences."
- Witness directed by Peter Weir (1985)
[7/10]
"Witness creates good suspense and shows the contrasting culture of the Amish without making any judgements. The script lays on the religious symbolism quite thick: John (an apostle of Christ), Book (a synonym for the Bible), and John knows carpentry (Christ was the son of a carpenter). With this setup, you must expect that John Book will function as some sort of savior figure, but that savior figure also has romantic inclinations."
- World Trade Center directed by Oliver Stone (2006)
[6/10]
"Stone does an excellent job of developing his characters, in spite of having his main characters immobolized in a pile of rubble. He also never allows the story to get overly sentimental and avoids overtly manipulating the audience's emotions."
Average score: 6.35
