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MIKE RUSSELL Movie Reviews

Mike Russell
112 reviews, averaging 59.9% positive

 

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1.
Battleship (2012)
Portland Oregonian
05/18/12 Weak "...grindingly dull, digitally rendered naval warfare; the flick could easily be retitled 'Flying Ordinance and Forgettable Stars: The Motion Picture.' "
2.
Sound of My Voice
Portland Oregonian
05/11/12 Good "Batmanglij lets the mystery unfold in an immersive way that's probably a bit more compelling than its actual scripted payoff deserves."
3. 04/27/12 Very Good "...it's better at being droll than laugh-out-loud funny.... What's best about 'Pirates!' is that you never quite know where it's heading."
4.
The Lucky One
Portland Oregonian
04/20/12 Moderate "...blandly pleasant enough.... But when the film tries to inject anything resembling high drama, it gets dumb in a hurry."
5.
American Reunion (2012)
Portland Oregonian
04/06/12 Poor "...worthless, cynical, tone-deaf, witless, cash-grabbing garbage.... Even worse, very little of it is remotely funny."
6.
Boy (2012)
Portland Oregonian
04/06/12 Very Good "...a big-hearted, bittersweet story about a boy desperate to connect with his father."
7.
John Carter
Portland Oregonian
03/09/12 Very Good "...overpowering, joyously unhinged pulp.... too wickedly strange not to recommend. Movies this expensive usually play it much safer."
8.
The Island President
Portland Oregonian
02/16/12 Good "The doc's first 20 minutes, detailing Nasheed's bold journey from prison to power, are its most compelling. The doc turns into a less-compelling rallying cry after Nasheed launches an initiative to make Maldives carbon-neutral..."
9.
Safe House (2012)
Portland Oregonian
02/10/12 Good (Not Great) "Reynolds avoids his usual wisecracking routine and gives a grim, conflicted performance... director Daniel Espinosa makes good use of the South African locations..."
10.
The Woman in Black (2012)
Portland Oregonian
02/03/12 Moderate "...eventually undermined by the film's increasing reliance on shock-scares, in which something suddenly and noisily jumps into the frame, over and over and over."
11.
We Bought a Zoo
Portland Oregonian
12/23/11 Moderate "...a modestly charming family crowd-pleaser despite too-broad characterizations by many in the supporting cast."
12. 12/16/11 Good "...has all the merits and demerits of its predecessor, only with a less snarly antagonist, a more thoughtful final showdown and broader Holmes/Watson relationship jokes."
13.
Arthur Christmas
Portland Oregonian
11/23/11 Very Good "Arthur is sort of a dull hero, but the grandfather is classic, hilarious Aardman -- a thoroughly British eccentric prone to weird nostalgic/fatalistic utterances."
14.
In Time (2011)
Portland Oregonian
10/28/11 Very Good "Niccol is practicing the old-school craft of making a barn-broad alternate-reality that forces you to think about the way we all consensually agree to participate in systems..."
15.
Margin Call
Portland Oregonian
10/21/11 Good (Not Great) "I just wish the movie wasn't so monologue-choked, muted to a fault and fond of oversimplifying financial lingo to the point of meaninglessness."
16. 10/14/11 Very Good "Hark's action movies have a what-did-I-just-see giddiness, as if their choreography were springing straight from a cartoon id."
17.
Real Steel
Portland Oregonian
10/07/11 Moderate "...sporadically crowd-pleasing but frequently brain-dead... It is wish-fulfillment for children who think their wayward dads can be redeemed by playing video games."
18.
Dolphin Tale
Portland Oregonian
09/23/11 Moderate "Charles Martin Smith and his screenwriters have chosen to lard the true-life saga up with a bunch of easily digested imaginary detail straight out of the bland Hollywood feel-good recipe mix."
19.
Attack the Block
Portland Oregonian
09/09/11 Excellent "...a tough, funny, fast-moving and tightly constructed John Carpenter riff in which a bickering group fights a pack of space monsters in and around a single location."
20.
Our Idiot Brother
Portland Oregonian
08/26/11 Good (Not Great) "...lives in a sort of relaxed in-between place where it doesn't really bite as drama or comedy, but the movie's world-class cast and big heart push it over."

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