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This site is your destination for new movie releases and films on DVD and Blu-ray. Our team of critics are dedicated to bringing you the best movie ratings and movie essays around, and they’ll always do so in an original and unbiased fashion. So take a look around, read our movie reviews, and feel free to comment by email or at our movie forum.

If you’re looking for movie reviews or movie essays, then you’ve come to the right place. In business since 2000, The Movie Review changed management in 2009 and brought in a crack squad of talent to make the site even better (think G.I. Joe, but with more corrective lenses and excess body fat). Based in the great state of Texas, we also boast writers from New York City in order to add a dash of cosmopolitan flavor. So take a look around, browse our reviews and movie essays, and prepare for an experience that’s without equal (that may be stretching it a bit, but you get the idea).

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Just before the house lights dimmed and Insidious began, a man sitting behind me said to his female companion, “Where’d they get that title? I don’t even know what ‘insidious’ means.” I didn’t hear any response from the woman. Note to filmmakers: Don’t title your movie with a word that your target demographic doesn’t understand. Besides, this movie was written and directed by the guys who made Saw–perhaps they didn’t learn from their own experience. For the record, the dictionary defines “insidious” as “proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects; treacherous.” That pretty much defines this movie, too. Well, except for the subtle part. Honestly, how subtle can a movie be when the opening title is displayed in giant letters, spanning nearly the entire height and width of the screen like it’s the beginning of Ben-Hur, and accompanied by nails-on-a-chalkboard screeching? (SPOILER: They repeat this at the end of the movie, making a lousy ending even worse.) After the tedious opening credits, the film settles into a somewhat typical yet promising setup. Teacher Josh (Patrick Wilson), his wife Renai (Rose Byrne), and their two young sons and baby daughter have just moved into a typical horror movie house: big wooden central ...

Zack Snyder, the director of Sucker Punch, has become an icon among cinematic nerds and pop culture fanboys. Following the surprise success of his different-but-just-as-good-as-the-original Dawn of the Dead remake, Snyder unleashed a sepia-toned killfest on viewers by the name of 300. Then he followed it up with a faithful big-screen adaptation of Watchmen, the legendary graphic novel from Alan Moore that had been perplexing studio heads and filmmakers for over 20 years. Throw in Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, and you can see a resume filled with fantastical and often bleak tales of battle and sacrifice. And let’s not forget about Superman: The Man of Steel, the franchise reboot (yet again) that’s scheduled for a 2012 release. It would appear that Zack Snyder can do no wrong. Well, with the exception of Sucker Punch. The film begins with 20-year-old Baby Doll (Emily Browning) suffering through the death of her mother and being forced to protect her younger sister from their greedy and lecherous step-father (he‘s after the fortune they just inherited). While fending off the creep with a pistol, Baby Doll accidentally shoots and kills her sibling, giving the step dad the perfect excuse to have her committed to an asylum. After an under-the-table deal is made...

During the bicentennial summer of 1976, there were 36 bombings in Cleveland, Ohio. Three dozen acts of domestic terrorism, all with a singular purpose: Kill the Irishman. Easier said than done in this interesting but too familiar organized crime saga based on a true story. The titular descendant of the Emerald Isle, fiercely proud of his heritage despite never having set foot in Ireland, is a lifelong Cleveland resident with an appropriate surname, Danny Greene (Ray Stevenson). His story begins in 1960 when, as a hardworking and outspoken longshoreman, he stood up to the corrupt union boss (Bob Gunton in what seems like a brief reprise of his role as the warden in The Shawshank Redemption) over adverse working conditions. Of course, Danny has some backup thanks to his new friend and partner in larceny, Cleveland Mafia underboss John Nardi (Vincent D’Onofrio), but Danny’s also unafraid to let his own two fists do the talking. When they do, they speak volumes. Danny is soon leading the longshoreman’s union in Cleveland and, like all union leaders before and after him, he lives high on the hog while ripping off union funds, employing thugs and thug tactics, and palling around with Nardi and his underworld connections. His corruption draws the attention of the press and the pol...

You don’t have to be a science-fiction nerd to enjoy the alien road-trip comedy Paul. But it helps. A lot. Take, for example, the caption that begins the film: “Moorcroft, Wyoming, 1947.” The year is a giveaway for anyone who’s ever heard of Roswell, New Mexico. But what about Moorcroft? Fanboys like me will recognize that location from a similar caption in Steven Spielberg’s UFO classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In fact, Spielberg himself contributes a voice cameo later on, in a clever scene that simultaneously references two more of his early hit movies. After the familiar-looking introductory scene, we leap forward to the present day and the mecca of sci-fi geek worship: the annual Comic-Con convention in San Diego. This year’s festivities have drawn two long-distance travelers, British best friends and collaborators Clive (Nick Frost) and Graeme (Simon Pegg). They are enjoying the vacation they’ve always dreamed about–coming to America, geeking out with the herds of nerds at Comic-Con, meeting their favorite author Adam Shadowchild (Jeffrey Tambor, deftly skewering celebrity sci-fi writers with only a few lines), and then renting an RV to make a pilgrimage across the southwestern United States, intending to see Roswell, Area 51 in Nevada, and ot...

Its story isn’t exactly ripped from the headlines, but The Lincoln Lawyer–Matthew McConaughey’s first film outing in more than two years–plays more like an early ’80s late-night crime thriller than a big-budget feature film. Let’s start with the opening credits. Names like Ryan Phillippe, Marisa Tomei and William H. Macy fly in from off screen to frame various interior shots of a big, black Lincoln Town Car and exterior shots of a sun-drenched but gritty Los Angeles. All the while, a distinctly 1970s funk tune plays in the background like some forgotten reject from the Shaft soundtrack. There’s nothing wrong with this opener per se; It just feels dated. Even the oft-mocked procedural crime dramas on television haven’t opened with so much cheese since Spenser was for hire. Like Spenser, The Lincoln Lawyer is based on a popular series of novels. This one, by bestseller Michael Connelly, tells the story of seedy but affable L.A. defense attorney, Mick Haller (McConaughey). He does most of his lawyering from the back seat of his chauffeured luxury car, hence the moniker. And his clients are a parade of hookers, poor Latin kids, and weed-growing bikers (including one played with intimidating gruffness by tall drink of water, country singer turned Celebr...

Most promotional items refer to this film as Battle: Los Angeles, but some have abbreviated it to Battle: LA. They wouldn’t abbreviate that first word, though, because then it would read BLA. Unfortunately for sci-fi and action fans, that would be truth in advertising, because this movie is blah, blah, blah. How can an alien invasion movie be blah? By ripping off elements of other alien invasion movies and shaky-cam you-are-there war films, heavily garnished with clichés and bad dialogue, often inaudible due to explosions and gunfire, and all delivered by two-dimensional characters the audience doesn’t care about. We’ve seen all of this before. In fact, the movie opens as the invasion is already beginning, with news reports of large “meteor showers” falling near the coastline of major cities around the world. But just when I thought this would be the rare film that doesn’t waste time with lengthy exposition, we’re soon flashing back 24 hours for an introduction to the stick-figure characters who’ll serve as Marines and Our Heroes for the next two hours. This is exactly the way last year’s stupid alien invasion flick Skyline started. The thought crossed my mind that I could just copy my Skyline review and change the title and names, but that would be che...

Red Riding Hood, the latest big-screen adaptation of the gruesome folktale, takes the shape of a chaste romantic triangle between a headstrong girl and two cute boys, one of whom might be a werewolf. Sound familiar? If images of Stephenie Meyer’s world of moody teenage girls, sparkly vampires and docile werewolves just popped into your head, you get the gold star. If, on the other hand, you’re inclined to believe that any film directed by Catherine Hardwicke and including Billy Burke in the cast will be devoid of shades of Twilight, then you ought to take off now. But before you go, can I interest you in a bridge? Only slightly used. This time around, the girl is Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), a pretty young thing who lives in a medieval village that has been terrorized for decades by a wolf. Even so, Valerie is fearless and often ventures into the woods alone. In order to appease the wolf, the rest of the fearful villagers must make a sacrifice of their very best livestock each full moon. But the uneasy truce is violated when the wolf kills Valerie’s sister early in the film. Valerie is comforted by two eager gentlemen callers: a blandly good-looking young woodcutter named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and a blandly good-looking young blacksmith named Henry (Max Irons, son of Jerem...

One of the tried-and-true clichés in cinematic gunfights, especially in westerns, is a gun misfiring. In the case of Rango, an animated western reteaming Johnny Depp (his voice, at least) with his Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, the entire movie is a misfire of a rather large caliber. A band of four mariachi-playing owls serve as narrating minstrels–a framing device lifted straight from the classic comedy western Cat Ballou–introducing us to a talkative lizard who considers himself the greatest actor of his terrarium. That is, until his world literally shatters on a hot desert highway. Abandoned, alone, and thirsty, the lizard finds his first friend in a not-quite-dead armadillo (Alfred Molina) on its back in the middle of the road, its midsection flattened by a car tire. This visual, although bloodless and amusingly familiar to us Texans, is nonetheless a bit shocking to see so early and so boldly in a film targeted toward children (and it isn’t the last shock of the age-inappropriate kind, either). Despite his virtual bisection, the armadillo seems to recover quickly and becomes a spirit guide for the lizard, telling him that to find water in the desert, he must first seek dirt. Or in this case, a parched desert town called Dirt, where the ragta...

Beastly’s story is a familiar one: a previously handsome but shallow, wealthy prince is turned into a hideous beast by a curse and only true love can break the spell. But everything else in this Gossip Girl-inspired reimagining is as unappealing as the beast himself. Inside and out. In this case, the cursed one is Kyle (former model Alex Pettyfer), a good-looking but obnoxious popular kid at a ritzy Manhattan private school. Early in the film, he wins an election for president of his school’s environmental club not because he actually gives a hoot about the trees or the dolphins but because he gives a speech exhorting his own beauty (“Should you vote for the rich, popular, good-looking guy with a famous news anchor dad? Hell, yeah!”) and insulting everyone who doesn’t share his stellar genetics, telling them to “embrace the suck.” But Kyle goes a step too far when he humiliates the school’s fashion-forward, Wicca-dabbling goth, Kendra (Mary Kate Olsen). She afflicts him with a bunch of tribal body art, a bald head and some swollen, red facial scars. These are supposed to make him ugly but are actually an improvement over his bad highlights, fake-and-bake tan and preppy blazer look. When Kyle’s equally shallow father (Peter Krause) discovers what’s happened to ...

A fat, hairy guy squatting, pants down, taking a crap in a golf course sand trap in broad daylight, is NOT, surprisingly, the most disgusting gross-out moment in Hall Pass, the latest comedy from Peter and Bobby Farrelly. Of course, the Farrelly brothers are no strangers to literally milking bodily functions for laughs, as evidenced by previous movies like Kingpin and There’s Something About Mary. This time, however, in addition to the sight described above, they deliver a moment that’s guaranteed to trigger an explosive audience reaction of simultaneous hysterics and revulsion. I won’t spoil it for you, but you’ll know what I’m talking about if and when you see it. And maybe I’m reveling a bit in my juvenile side, but of the rating I’m giving this movie, one full star is earned just for the sick brilliance of this single moment. One can’t help but think on a juvenile level considering that Hall Pass is all about reflecting on the past and attempting to relive one’s youth. Rick (Owen Wilson) and his wife Maggie (Jenna Fischer) have been married for 20 years and have three children. Rick obviously loves his wife and children right from the start–even turning down an inappropriate offer from their 20-year-old babysitter (Alexandra Daddario) when he drive...

If you think your family is dysfunctional, then you clearly haven’t seen We Are What We Are (Somos Lo Que Hay). This satirical horror movie from newbie Mexican writer-director Jorge Michel Grau takes messed-up families to a grotesque new level. The film starts off with a shot of a shabby, sickly middle-aged man on the clean-scrubbed streets of a Mexico City shopping plaza. He is gazing longingly at the bikini-clad mannequins in a shop window, while clutching his aching belly. After he vomits up bile and blood and drops dead on the street, he is stepped over by a few passersby before a street cleaning crew quickly mops up and disposes of his remains. An autopsy reveals the man’s last supper included a partially digested, fully manicured finger. And we learn that his surviving family–a wife, two teen sons, and a teen daughter–have been left without their sole breadwinner. Except papa didn’t so much bring home the bacon as he did the long pig. The remaining clan, who lives in a dark hovel on the outskirts of the city, survives on a ritual cannibalistic diet. Surprisingly, a fairly typical family drama ensues. The shy, sensitive (read: latently homosexual) eldest son, Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) struggles with his unwanted, newly inherited role as head of household...

I Am Number Four is pure teen melodrama…except when it’s not. The film opens on a darkly lit scene of a good-looking teenage boy–with some remarkable speed and agility–and his guardian. In a loud and frantically scored run through the African jungle, they are hunted and dispatched by a bunch of ugly, ferocious aliens. The camera zooms across the globe–over mountains, oceans and other sundry landscapes–to the Florida Keys and the titular Number Four (hunky Alex Pettyfer). At that very moment, the tanned blond beefcake, who goes by the Earth name John Smith, gets a white-hot mystical tattoo on his leg, indicating that the third of his compadres is dead. John was one of nine survivors of a planet called Lorien, which was wiped out by a race of competing aliens called the Mogadorians. The alien children with special abilities are hiding from the “Mogs” in disparate corners of Earth with their respective protectors (for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, these guys are like Watchers, only less British). The big meanies with shark teeth and facial gills won’t stop until all the Loriens are dust in the wind. I mean that literally. When they die, the Loriens dissolve into special-effects sparkly ash. There’s only one thing to slow the Mogs down: The...

Here’s what I learned from Unknown: Diane Kruger will never race Formula 1, Frank Langella can never be trusted, and Liam Neeson should never be screwed with. Got it? Good. In his latest Euro-set film, Neeson continues his foray into the unlikely role of AARP-reading ass-kicker. In 2008’s Taken, he was an ex-spy leaving no skull un-smashed as he tore up Paris in search of his teenage daughter. This time, he is Dr. Martin Harris, an American botanist invited to speak at a high-profile biotechnology symposium in Berlin. Or is he? When he arrives at his hotel with his pretty, dead-eyed wife Elizabeth (pretty, dead-eyed January Jones), he realizes that he’s accidentally left his briefcase–with his passport and all other forms of identification–at the airport. So he hops into a taxi driven by Gina (Diane Kruger) and tells her to floor it. But her attempts at Autobahn-speed driving cause them to go careening off a bridge into icy-cold waters, where she rescues him and then disappears before the cops arrive. Martin takes a bump to the head in the accident and ends up in a coma for four days before surfacing with only incomplete and color-saturated flashbacks of his past. The one thing he does remember is his hot wife, who must certainly be wondering where he is. Two pr...

There’s nothing wrong with mediocrity in the movies. If it didn’t exist, how else could we discern between masterpieces and the dregs of the motion picture industry? No, we need mediocrity like a map needs to indicate north; it gives the viewer a point of reference on that post-credits walk to their car (when most people lock in their opinion of a film). Case in point: Just Go with It, a loose adaptation of 1969′s Cactus Flower and the latest rom-com from funnyman Adam Sandler. It’s just what it aspires to be: a cash cow with two big-time leads, a couple of cute kids, a hot blonde, a scenic Hawaiian backdrop, and not much else. To indicate the sheer cookie-cutter nature of Just Go with It, let’s play a game. I’ll give a brief description of the film’s premise, pausing occasionally to provide you with a series of multiple choice answers. If you get them right, continue to read on. If you slip up or get confused, penalize yourself by going back and watching at least ten romantic comedies released since Pretty Woman. Adam Sandler is Danny Maccabee, a Jewish guy and medical student with a comically oversized nose. On the day of his wedding, he overhears his soon-to-be-wife making fun of him and admitting to infidelity, so he goes to a bar to drown his sorrows. While...

Let’s give some credit to our friendly Canadian neighbors: People of the “Great White North” frequently make significant and intriguing contributions to popular culture, but too often their popularity diminishes significantly when they venture south of the border. A prime example is Barney’s Version, a touching comedic drama that received only one Golden Globe nomination (for Paul Giamatti, who won Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical) and one Oscar nomination (for Best Makeup), yet leads all contenders with 11 nominations for the Canadian Genie Awards. Incindies, the French Canadian film nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is in second place at the Genies with 10 nominations. Barney Panofsky (Giamatti) is a Montreal television producer who’s just been featured in the papers due to the publication of a book that accuses him of committing a long-unsolved murder. The old, fat detective (Mark Addy) that wrote the book even hounds Barney at his favorite local bar, inquiring, “Where’d you hide the body?” Barney won’t answer him, but instead we flashback to 1974 as we’re presented with Barney’s version of events–of his entire romantic life, as it turns out. Barney’s first marriage, to a free-spirited hippie (Rachelle Lefevre) he and his friend...

If you venture to see The Eagle, an ancient Rome-set actioner starring Channing Tatum, it’s best you leave your political mind at home. I know it’s a challenge. What with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still going, it’s easy to expect a contribution to the political dialogue from any contemporary war movie, no matter when or where it’s set. But don’t expect to find any side-taking political message here. All you’ll get are swords and sandals. Set in Roman-ruled Britain in 140 A.D., the story centers on Marcus Aurelius Aquila (Tatum). He is a recently promoted Roman soldier who opts to have his command post in the troubled southern region of Britannia. It is where his father, 20 years before, set out from as the standard bearer for the Ninth Legion of Rome on a mission to conquer the northern lands of Caledonia (present-day Scotland). His father’s legion was utterly crushed by the native Britons, and his standard–a gold eagle–was captured. As a result, the embarrassed emperor Hadrian walled off the whole northern part of the island and declared the wall “the end of the world.” Marcus is intent on redeeming his family name and decides to enter the hinterlands to retrieve the eagle. His only companion is Esca (Jaime Bell), a Briton slave. We know three th...

Yep, Cold Weather is a movie. Now before you start hailing me Captain Obvious, allow me to assure you that that sentence is actually pretty high praise for a mumblecore film. For those of you not familiar with the genre, here’s my understanding of it: A listless, underachieving 20-something dude meets a listless, underachieving 20-something chick or maybe another listless, underachieving 20-something dude. A shaky handheld digital camera clumsily zooms in and out as they walk. Or they drive in a car, preferably an early-80s model VW Rabbit. In, like, Portland. Or Austin. They discuss “real” stuff like dental hygiene. Or lounge chairs. Or gin rummy. And they drink a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Then they drive some more. Fade to black. All right, I’m being a little facetious. But, to me, mumblecore is emblematic of a young, hipster sensibility–as nebulous an idea as that is–in its attempt to convince audiences that neither the filmmakers nor performers really care about whether or not they make what might properly be called a movie. “Plot? What plot? We’re just being real, man. Life doesn’t need a script.” True. But movies do. It’s the mere existence of a plot that makes me say Cold Weather is a movie. In it, Doug (Chris Lankenau) drops out of colle...

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