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 2/4 |
300 (2007) |
"Hey,I only called it a Hitler recruitment video, fellas." |
Kyle Smith |
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 3.5/4 |
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2008) |
"Excruciating, ugly and very, very foreign. Sounds like the ideal candidate for the Palme D'Or." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
American Gangster (2007) |
"Say hello to my leetle M.B.A! It's the black Scarface. But American Gangster is an economic education with as many bullet points as bullets." |
Kyle Smith |
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2.5/4 |
Appaloosa (2008) |
"When you're lookin for an Olde Time, pistol-wieldin', rootin', tootin' varmint, hire somebody other than Jeremy Irons. What is this--Bonanza Revisited?" |
Kyle Smith |
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3/4 |
Atonement (2007) |
"Belongs to the realm of theater--"Masterpiece Theater." A misdirected-letter movie? Really? In 2007?" |
Kyle Smith |
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3/4 |
Beowulf (2007) |
"Gather round the fire, for I will tell you a tale unlike any other. OK, it's like The Lord of the Rings retold with plastic dolls and a lot of wench jokes." |
Kyle Smith |
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2.5/4 |
Body of Lies (2008) |
"Gets across a palpable sense of Iraq fatigue. Which is another way of saying it invites the audience to see the talking-Chihuahua picture instead." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) |
"Another potent PowerBar of a movie, all protein and no fat. I sat there transfixed and chuckling with joy as Greengrass let. Her. Rip." |
Kyle Smith |
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2.5/4 |
Charlie Wilson's War (2007) |
"Call it Afghanishtar. So strange that Democrats are shown killing Commies--not calling for sanctions against them or filing motions in the U.N." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Cloverfield (2008) |
"A combination of unpleasantness and stupidity that would be difficult to match, unless you were stuck in bed with the shingles while being forced to watch The Ghost Whisperer." |
Kyle Smith |
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The Dark Knight (2008) |
"A conservative movie that lives on a razor edge of tradeoffs. Extremism in the defense of liberty is Batman's virtue." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
Definitely, Maybe (2008) |
"This movie sparkles like diamonds." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Evan Almighty (2007) |
"And God looked out onto the teeming plains and and He saw that there were many suckers who dwelt upon the land who did lust to spend their shekels upon bird-poop jokes." |
Kyle Smith |
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2.5/4 |
The Express (2008) |
"Just about good enough to be the 40th best episode of Friday Night Lights. Which has aired 39 episodes." |
Kyle Smith |
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0.5/4 |
Fool's Gold (2008) |
"Ought to come with a warning sign posted in the lobby: no shirt, no shoes, no laughs." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) |
"Writing and starring in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason Segel gets emotionally naked. He bares his soul. Also, he lets us see his schlong. As Steve Martin said, comedy is not pretty." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
Funny Games (2008) |
"Rivals and probably tops the Ellen Page internet-predator film Hard Candy in disgusting, vile, vicious, incandescently brutal wickedness. So why did I love this evil film?" |
Kyle Smith |
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1/4 |
Get Smart (2008) |
"The Aughties equivalent of the Dan Aykroyd/Tom Hanks stab at Dragnet." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
Ghost Town (2008) |
"Ricky Gervais is lethally funny talking to dead people in his big-screen debut as a leading man." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
Gone Baby Gone (2007) |
"A bitterly sublime neo-noir: It's Beantown, Jake. Affleck has made us breathe the rot his characters were born to die in." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Grace is Gone (2007) |
"This is John Cusack. John is an Actor. Be catatonic, John. Good. Now be confused. Sad. Angry. Heartbroken. Fine. Now can we go home?" |
Kyle Smith |
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4/4 |
Hairspray (2007) |
"Fellas, there are going to be a lot of little hotties at this movie. Here is an ideal place to catch them off-duty, their hair up in scrunchies. No, it won't turn you gay." |
Kyle Smith |
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3/4 |
Hancock (2008) |
"His symbol is the eagle. He beats up on little Frenchmen. He is 'the only one of my kind,' the world's lone and lonely superpower. Hancock is a clever metaphor for America in the world." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008) |
"There's a reason why Foreign Affairs has never done a theme issue about "Dude, Where's My Car?"" |
Kyle Smith |
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2.5/4 |
In Bruges (2008) |
"A cold little jolt of cruelty, which is more than most crime thrillers can offer." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
In the Valley of Elah (2007) |
"Will forever be known as the upside-down American flag movie. But showing the flag this way is heavy stuff that is supported by the movie the way a bowling ball is supported by a dandelion." |
Kyle Smith |
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2.5/4 |
The Incredible Hulk (2008) |
"Iron Man is easily superior to The Incredible Hulk. Tony Stark's wit, his flair, the way everything comes easily to him and he makes the ladies purr, are all the opposite of what Bruce Banner brings to the party." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) |
"Packed with fights and chases--but then so were the old Tom and Jerry cartoons. The worst Steven Spielberg popcorn flick since 1941." |
Kyle Smith |
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4/4 |
Into the Wild (2007) |
"I was exhilarated--and devastated." |
Kyle Smith |
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1.5/4 |
The Invasion (2007) |
"When I heard the movie involved frozen facial expressions, Nicole Kidman and barfing, I assumed it was a documentary about Kidman's Oscar week routine." |
Kyle Smith |
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3/4 |
Iron Man (2008) |
"Visual sizzle, top actors and a witty script, yet it could have been so much better if only it didn't try to cobble together a pacifist warrior." |
Kyle Smith |
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1.5/4 |
Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) |
"Aggressively bland, a display of X-treme mildness, a cinematic saltine." |
Kyle Smith |
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0.5/4 |
Jumper (2008) |
"A movie about wormholes made from a script riddled with more holes than Hillary Clinton's campaign strategy." |
Kyle Smith |
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2.5/4 |
Juno (2007) |
"Being the hipster movie of the year presents a couple of problems. One is that hipsters are kind of annoying." |
Kyle Smith |
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3/4 |
The Kingdom (2007) |
"The Kingdom is the anti-Syriana: yes, it says, the Middle East is very, very complicated, but Americans have solved tougher problems, thanks very much." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
La Vie En Rose (2007) |
"Pursued, caught and devoured by the past, [Piaf] nearly shouts the lyric, "Je me fous du passé!": I don't give a damn about the past." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Leatherheads (2008) |
"Like going to a football game and watching the players bring desks and paperwork onto the field. How boring is this movie? I've been more entertained by halftime shows." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Mamma Mia! (2008) |
"Terrible jokes in a movie that is nonetheless hilarious. You will laugh at, not with, Mamma Mia." |
Kyle Smith |
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4/4 |
Man on Wire (2008) |
"A giddy dream, a suspenser, a harrowing surreal comedy of the possible--like Dog Day Afternoon told by Amelie." |
Kyle Smith |
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4/4 |
Margot at the Wedding (2007) |
"In paying homage to Eric Rohmer, the master of bourgeois moral dilemmas, Noah Baumbach has in many ways improved on perfection." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Michael Clayton (2007) |
"So: the crazy people are the truly sane ones. Does this sound more like a complex 70s thriller or a dizzy 60s dream?" |
Kyle Smith |
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4/4 |
No Country for Old Men (2007) |
"A dust-bowl Pulp Fiction, the movie is bloody, suspenseful, unnerving and, not incidentally, hilarious. The best Coen Bros. drama, without the twitchy mannerisms of Fargo." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
Ocean's Thirteen (2007) |
"The "Ocean's" series started out popping like the Bellagio. With "Ocean's Thirteen" it has gone as dead as CircusCircus. On a Tuesday afternoon. During a Shriners convention." |
Kyle Smith |
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2/4 |
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) |
"Set your bosoms to heave and prepare to have your bodices ripped: "The Other Boleyn Girl" is in the house with a pair of 16th century foxes." |
Kyle Smith |
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1.5/4 |
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) |
"Yo ho ho and a bottle of regulations!...has the soul of a three-hour U.N. committee meeting. Gods' bodkins, me hearties, this movie blows like a whale from the vasty deep." |
Kyle Smith |
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4/4 |
Ratatouille (2007) |
"I would have loved to have been present during the pitch meeting for "Ratatouille." "It's, um, a little bit 'Willard,' a little bit 'Like Water for Chocolate'"!...The greatest rat movie and the greatest food movie ever made." |
Kyle Smith |
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1/4 |
The Rocker (2008) |
"Memo to Rainn Wilson: A shot of a paunchy middle-aged man in jockey shorts is not automatically funny. Okay, it kind of is. But The Rocker is as formulaic as a Whitesnake song without the virtue of a four-minute running time." |
Kyle Smith |
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3.5/4 |
Rocket Science (2007) |
"A frightening memorandum from a dismal and mysterious dungeon: high school." |
Kyle Smith |
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1/4 |
Semi-Pro (2008) |
"Goes up for the dunk but misses the rim, the backboard and the point. Instead it manages to strike out and get sacked at the same time." |
Kyle Smith |
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3/4 |
Sex and the City - The Movie (2008) |
"To its credit, though, the movie turns Carrie's value system, which equates "the two Ls--Labels and Love," to its advantage, and in the second half the movie achieves a nice balance between comedy and drama." |
Kyle Smith |
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