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An exciting, funny, and poignant adventure, Up offers an impeccably crafted story told with wit and arranged with depth, as well as yet another visual Pixar treat.

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"Up" is a wonderful film, with characters who are as believable as any characters can be who spend much of their time floating above the rain forests of Venezuela. They have tempers, problems and obsessions. They are cute and goofy, but they aren't cute in the treacly way of little cartoon animals. They're cute in the human way of the animation master Hayao Miyazaki . Two of the three central characters are cranky old men, which is a wonder in this youth-obsessed era. "Up" doesn't think all heroes must be young or sweet, although the third important character is a nervy kid.

This is another masterwork from Pixar, which is leading the charge in modern animation. The movie was directed by Pete Docter , who also directed " Monsters, Inc. ," wrote " Toy Story " and was a co-writer on "WALL-E" before leaving to devote full time to this project. So Docter's one of the leading artists of this latest renaissance of animation.

The movie will be shown in 3-D in some theaters, about which I will say nothing, except to advise you to save the extra money and see it in 2-D. One of the film's qualities that is likely to be diminished by 3-D is its subtle and beautiful color palette. "Up," like " Finding Nemo ," "Toy Story," " Shrek " and " The Lion King ," uses colors in a way particularly suited to its content.

"Up" tells a story as tickling to the imagination as the magical animated films of my childhood, when I naively thought that because their colors were brighter, their character outlines more defined and their plots simpler, they were actually more realistic than regular films.

It begins with a romance as sweet and lovely as any I can recall in feature animation. Two children named Carl and Ellie meet and discover they share the same dream of someday being explorers. In newsreels, they see the exploits of a daring adventurer named Charles Muntz ( Christopher Plummer ), who uses his gigantic airship to explore a lost world on a plateau in Venezuela and then bring back the bones of fantastic creatures previously unknown to man. When his discoveries are accused of being faked, he flies off enraged to South America again, vowing to bring back living creatures to prove his claims.

Nothing is heard from him for years. Ellie and Carl ( Edward Asner ) grow up, have a courtship, marry, buy a ramshackle house and turn it into their dream home, are happy together and grow old. This process is silent, except for music (the elder Ellie doesn't even have a voice credit). It's shown by Docter in a lovely sequence, without dialogue, that deals with the life experience in a way that is almost never found in family animation. The lovebirds save their loose change in a gallon jug intended to finance their trip to the legendary Paradise Falls, but real life gets in the way: flat tires, home repairs, medical bills. Then they make a heartbreaking discovery. This interlude is poetic and touching.

The focus of the film is on Carl's life after Ellie. He becomes a recluse, holds out against the world, keeps his home as a memorial, talks to the absent Ellie. One day he decides to pack up and fly away -- literally. Having worked all his life as a balloon man, he has the equipment on hand to suspend the house from countless helium-filled balloons and fulfill his dream of seeking Paradise Falls. What he wasn't counting on was an inadvertent stowaway, Russell ( Jordan Nagai ), a dutiful Wilderness Explorer Scout, who looks Asian American.

What they find at Paradise Falls and what happens there I will not say. But I will describe Charles Muntz's gigantic airship that is hovering there. It's a triumph of design, and perhaps owes its inspiration, though not its appearance, to Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky." The exterior is nothing special: a really big zeppelin. But the interior is one of those movie spaces you have the feeling you'll remember.

With vast inside spaces, the airship is outfitted like a great ocean liner from the golden age, with a stately dining room, long corridors, a display space rivaling the Natural History Museum and an attic spacious enough to harbor fighter planes. Muntz, who must be a centenarian by now, is hale, hearty and mean, his solitary life shared only by robotic dogs.

The adventures on the jungle plateau are satisfying in a Mummy/Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones sort of way. But they aren't the whole point of the film. This isn't a movie like " Monsters vs. Aliens ," which is mostly just frenetic action. There are stakes here, and personalities involved, and two old men battling for meaning in their lives. And a kid who, for once, isn't smarter than all the adults. And a loyal dog. And an animal sidekick. And always that house and those balloons.

A longer version is here: http://blogs.suntimes.com/eber...

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Edward Asner as Carl

Jordan Nagai as Russell

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Bob Peterson as Dug

Delroy Lindo as Beta

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‘up’: film review.

Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, the gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches that came before it.

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Michael Rechtshaffen

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Given the inherent three-dimensional quality evident in Pixar’s cutting-edge output, the fact that the studio’s 10th animated film is the first to be presented in digital 3-D wouldn’t seem to be particularly groundbreaking in and of itself.

But what gives Up such a joyously buoyant lift is the refreshingly nongimmicky way in which the process has been incorporated into the big picture — and what a wonderful big picture it is.

The Bottom Line Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, the gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches that came before it.

It’s also the ideal choice to serve as the first animated feature ever to open the Festival de Cannes, considering the way it also pays fond homage to cinema’s past, touching upon the works of Chaplin and Hitchcock, not to mention aspects of It’s a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz and, more recently, About Schmidt .

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What is Up ?

It is a love story. A tragedy. A soaring fantasy, and a surreal animated comedy. A three-hankie weepie and a cliffhanging thriller. A cross-generational odd-couple buddy movie; a story of man and dog. A tale of sharply observed melancholy truths and whimsically unfettered nonsense.

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Moral/spiritual value, age appropriateness, mpaa rating, caveat spectator.

On top of all that, Up opens with a standalone cartoon short ( Partly Cloudy ) and a newsreel, like going to the Saturday double-bill matinee in the old days, when Carl Fredrickson was a shy, wide-eyed lad who idolized dashing celebrity explorer Charles Muntz and dreamed of adventure, but became tongue-tied in the overwhelming presence of the irrepressible, voluble young Ellie, his polar opposite and kindred spirit.

Up opens with an eloquent, economical prologue that is among the most arresting tributes to lifelong love that I have ever seen in any film, let alone a cartoon. Joy, serenity, hope and heartbreak, dreams long cherished and long deferred — a lifetime of indelible memories effortlessly evoked in a few brief minutes.

Now a stumpy, crusty old geezer who lives by himself in a forlorn bungalow glaringly out of place in a neighborhood in the throes of urban upheaval, Carl (Edward Asner) is a widower, but Ellie remains very much a presence in the film. She is still the center of Carl’s world, and their love story is the only story he has.

No, Carl won’t hear of selling his house to the faceless suit who razes and erects worlds around him. He doesn’t want the help of the hopelessly earnest young Wilderness Explorer Russell (Jordan Nagai), doggedly fixated on doing the old man a good turn to earn his missing “Assisting the Elderly” merit badge.

Above all, Carl is contemptuously determined that whatever his future holds, it won’t be the sanitized comfort of the Shady Oaks retirement home. What other animated film has contemplated the anxious stubbornness of the elderly to cling to whatever independence they can for as long as they can, to remain connected to familiar places and things? What other animated film even has a senior citizen for a protagonist? ( Howl’s Moving Castle doesn’t count; Miyazaki’s doddering heroine is really a youth in a grandmother’s body.)

And then things start to unravel, and Carl’s future is no longer in his hands — not without reason, to his guilty shame. You may have seen or known about similar cases from the outside; Up shows us the story from Carl’s inside perspective.

And so we come to the great conceit celebrated in the much-seen trailers. If you’ve seen the trailers, you don’t need me to describe it, and if by some twist you haven’t, why would I rob you of the moment of revelation? It is a sequence of singular magic, and the delight of discovery comes but once.

Suffice to say, Carl precipitously decides to throw caution to the winds and embark on the long-dormant dream he and Ellie shared: to follow in the footsteps of their childhood hero Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) and go to South America to see the spectacular Paradise Falls in the “Lost World” of Venezuelan mesa country. Yes, the journey started in that magical moment has a destination; Up is not the aimless, lofty film one might imagine from the trailer.

Yet nothing so far could prepare you for the lunacy that commences once the film reaches the vicinity of Carl’s destination. Somehow, like Dorothy with her cyclone, like Muntz in those old newsreeels, Carl has left the ordinary world behind and landed in a “Lost World” of his boyhood pulp fantasies — a world of lighter-than-air airships and biplane dogfights, of exotic refugees from a Dr. Seuss zoology, of “Wallace & Gromit”–esque dogs who cook, among other things, and even (in a conceit echoing the film version of Michael Crichton’s “Lost World” tale Congo ) communicate in a way that is both goofily human yet hilariously canine.

As wonky as the proceedings get, director Pete Docter ( Monsters, Inc. ) and screenwriter and co-director Bob Peterson ( Finding Nemo ) never entirely lose touch with the ragged human emotions underlying the story. There’s an obvious metaphor in the film itself for the strange blend of realism and zaniness, partly tethered to solid ground, partly twisting in the capricious winds of whimsy.

More fundamentally, Carl’s house, the film’s central metaphor, is the embodiment of his shared life with Ellie, and thereby a symbol of Ellie herself. Up offers a sweeter and less uncanny counterpoint to Gil Kenan’s Monster House , a darker computer-animated tale of a crotchety, reclusive old widower inhabiting a house that’s as much a character as the humans, with a mind of its own. Ellie’s childhood “Adventure Book,” a scrapbook documenting her exploits and aspirations, with its blank pages saved for her hoped-for trip to South America, epitomizes the tension between unrealized dreams and what turns out to be the actual stuff of our lives.

But it goes deeper than that. Not to spoil the emotional and narrative territory, I’ll append some brief final thoughts to the end of the review for readers who have seen the film.

There is also poignancy in Russell the Wilderness Explorer’s back story, and in the simple vignettes in which, ultimately, two broken lives prop one another up. Although not as centrally or violently, Up feels the gulf of grief and betrayal in the wake of the absentee father as acutely as The Spiderwick Chronicles — another family film in which a house is much more than a house.

As powerful as the emotional underpinnings are, the characters experiencing those emotions don’t quite come entirely into their own. They’re somewhat archetypal, not entirely unlike the characters in WALL-E , rather than fully realized, specific individuals, like those of Finding Nemo , The Incredibles and Ratatouille . In part because of this, for all its emotional power, for all that Up gets right, on first viewing I find the overall effect to be poignant and charming rather than enthralling.

Rarefied standards, applicable only to the work of Pixar. The very fact that I came this close to the end of this review without mentioning the studio’s name or comparing it to previous works is a testament to their sustained achievement. There was no need. Only one team in the world is doing work like this.

I did not cry while watching Up , though certainly many will, but I was moved to tears afterward thinking about it. It has become commonplace to say that Pixar makes films as much or more for adults as for children, but this is too facile. Up is a film about life that makes realities of adult and even geriatric experience universally accessible, even to the youngest viewers. Isn’t this among the noblest things a story can do?

Final thoughts (thematic spoilers)

For viewers who have seen the film, some parting thoughts about the symbolic depths of Carl’s house.

As noted above, the house represents both Carl’s shared life with Ellie and Ellie herself, who even in her absence remains the defining fixture of Carl’s life.

At first, the house — Carl’s memories, his mourning, his love for his late wife — is his refuge, his solace in a world that is moving on without him, leaving him behind. Then, in a moment of crisis, the house becomes his escape, his freedom. It buoys him up, elevates him above an intolerable situation.

As time goes on, though, the house starts to become something else: a burden. Baggage. An increasingly torpid, even ridiculous dead weight that he feels obliged to drag laboriously around everywhere he goes.

In the end, it threatens to become something worse: a death trap. It is something Carl must let go. Maybe not all at once — maybe it starts with piecemeal efforts that lighten the load — but in the end the whole thing has to be cut loose.

And then, a paradoxical miracle: Only when he lets it go does it finally take its rightful place in the whole drama of his life. The whole story-arc of the house is an astoundingly fluid metaphor for bereavement, grief, loyalty to departed loved ones, malaise and the threat of morbidity, and finally acceptance and something like peace.

Available on DVD and Blu-ray, Up comes loaded with extras, including commentary by directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, a new short with Dug the dog (“Doug’s Secret Mission”), and behind-the-scenes featurettes on story development (“The Many Endings of Muntz”) and the filmmakers’ expedition to Venezuela’s tepui highlands (“Adventure is Out There”).

Blu-ray extras offer tons more: featurettes on several characters (elderly Carl, young explorer Russell, brightly-plumed Kevin, even Carl’s house!), a geography game and more. The Blu-ray set also comes with the movie on standard DVD, so it’s worth getting even if a Blu-ray player is still well in your future.

I have mostly stopped reading movie reviews prior to viewing the movies, except for the reviews you write. Perhaps I just read the wrong reviewers, but I’ve noticed that more and more of them pretty much just give away the entire story and leave no room for surprise. It’s almost as though movie reviewers these days want to make sure that the movie consumer knows exactly what their $9.00 (or whatever it costs in your market) is getting them. It sure doesn’t leave a lot of room for surprise and wonder. This was brought to mind rather strongly in comparing your review of Up with the review published by another Christian venue for the same movie. I read yours before seeing the movie (I skipped the spoiler section on first reading, though your spoilers tend to be more coy than most), and the other review post-viewing. While I appreciated the other critic’s insights into some of the themes, I found the six or seven paragraphs summarizing almost the entire movie to be way to revealing. The review gave away too much. I say this not to pick on the other critic, but to illustrate what I see to be a general trend in movie reviews. I’m not a particularly observant movie watcher. I know little about movie-making technique, and I rarely sit around after viewing to analyze what it was that made the story work. I find reviews helpful to tip me off to things to keep an eye out for that I might otherwise miss, insights that amplify the viewing experience, and of course, whether the movie is one I might want to see. For me, a good review is one that I can read both before and after seeing the film and get something out of each time, while also getting to enjoy the movie itself. So thank you. Your reviews are consistently excellent (even when I have to disagree with your conclusions), and have been instrumental in pushing me to see movies I might not otherwise have seen (e.g. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days ). You don’t give away the story or spoil the movie for me, either. For all these things, I am grateful. Thank you!

I think you should up (no pun intended) your rating to an A+. I saw the movie with my teenage kids and they were moved by the incredible love of the couple. I’ve never seen love expressed so simple and so joyful in a cartoon movie.

Thank you for your “final thoughts” on the real role of the house in Up . There was something about the house’s relationship with Carl I didn’t quite get at the time (possibly because I was holding a 2-year-old on my lap, and the moment of the great house-purging occurred just as he — the 2-year-old — ran out of cherry icee — otherwise, he sat through the entire thing in rapt attention), but your comments on how [ spoiler alert ] the house became a burden to be dragged around and Carl’s piecemeal attempts to rid himself of it before realizing it was a real life-trap made the whole movie click for me. And, for what it’s worth, I was one of the guys who cried in the theater (probably the only time during the movie I was glad we’d seen it in 3‑D … those tinted buddy holly glasses are good for something). Not too many animated movies deal with the unsharable grief of a miscarriage (and certainly none with that degree of economy and emotional precision). But then, I cried in Cars (and every other Pixar movie), too, when Route 66 gets bypassed and Radiator Springs becomes a forgotten ghost town, so maybe I’m just a sucker for a good story.

Up was a joy. Your review not only encouraged us to go see it, it magnified our pleasure with the qualities and values it presented. Thanks for your site. You’re a gifted educator.

Thank you for your interesting review of Up . I thought the film was “cute”, but I was personally disappointed after all the hype. Something bothered me (besides the repetitive soundtrack): there were a lot of violent elements in the film (life-threatening situations for the heroes). I understand this is a cartoon, but at the same time, this is not a film with talking cars, superheroes, animated toys, or talking animals (well … okay). We have a character who tries to kill the young Wilderness Explorer not once, not twice but three times (the last time with a shotgun!). When the crazy guy falls to his death, there is no reaction from our “heroes” (not even shock or horror) — their only concern is for the house (and for the weird bird). This situation kinda felt odd in a film geared to young kids.

What are you opinions on the character of Kevin as a gay/transgendered character (colorful, rainbow-like character)? I’ve read that this was a subtle nod by Pixar to the Prop 8/GLBT crowd. I saw the movie and didn’t pick up on it, but others who have seen it had commented on this. I am interested to hear your opinion on this.

I’ve read a lot of reviews of Up , but I don’t think I have heard anyone addressing this particular issue [ spoiler warning ]. When Carl lifts up his house for his trip to Central America, he severs his home’s plumbing and electricity. He makes it clear that he doesn’t have any more balloons or helium. He can’t go back. He only has the food he keeps in the house, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to find more edibles in the jungle (and he certainly isn’t prepared to hunt). If he has a medical emergency, there is no doctor or hospital for maybe hundreds of miles. That leads to one conclusion: Carl is going to South America to die. Carl is clearly really healthy for his age (evidenced by all the physical activity he performs), but if he did succeed in moving his house to the cliffs, he would probably only have a few weeks before he died, probably of starvation. This journey is not just an adventure, it’s a suicide mission. I think that the heart of the story lies in Russell (and also Doug’s) ability to make Carl come alive once more. Once Carl realizes that he has a responsibility to others besides himself, Carl realizes that he has to fight to stay alive. I would like to make some comments on your final thoughts on the great metaphor that is Carl’s house. I think that in making the journey, Carl is trying to write the last chapter of his life, and the love story between himself and Ellie. By ripping it from the ground and disconnecting all pipes and wires, he has deliberately rendered it impossible to live in for very long. He has tried to draw the curtain on his life, but Russell and Doug draw it back again, and for the first time since Ellie’s death, Carl has someone to live for — thank goodness.

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Movie Review: Up - The Greatest Adventure

[This review contains plot details revealed in the first 10 minutes of Pixar's Up ]

Pixar's movies have always depicted fantastical worlds spun out of reams of boundless creativity. A rat who dreamed of becoming a chef, and who lived out that dream through controlling a guy by pulling on his hair. An epic battle between ants and grasshoppers. A city full of monsters, powered by the screams of children. A family of superheroes that try to defeat a spurned ex-devotee.

It's in the context of these wondrous films that Up emerges as Pixar's entry for summer 2009. Directed by Pete Docter ( Monsters Inc. ), Up is Pixar's most ambitious effort yet. Pixar films have always expertly been able to imbue fantasy with real-world emotions, but with Up , Docter tries to create a world that is both distinctively ours, yet also a universe of its own. How well does he succeed?

Up tells the story of Carl Fredrickson (Ed Asner), a retired balloon seller whose wife has recently passed away. Carl's biggest regret is that he never took his wife, Ellie, to visit her dream destination of Paradise Falls in South America while she was still alive. Determined to rectify this mistake, Carl fills his house full of helium balloons and the next morning, he deploys them out of his chimney, ripping his house off its foundation and sending it hurtling southwards. On the way to his destination, he finds that Russell (Jordan Nagai), a local Wilderness Explorer (this movie's version of Boy Scouts) has stowed away on board, in an attempt to help Carl and win his "Assisting the Elderly" badge. Together, the two form an unlikely friendship as Carl tries to fulfill his quest.

Let it first be said that Up is thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. There was nary a moment that didn't engage, thrill, or pull (and occasionally yank ) on my heartstrings. The first ten minutes of the film, which contain an utterly masterful montage depicting a romance from inception till death, is some of the best storytelling I've ever seen in my life, and evokes Wall-E's opening 30 minutes of dialogue-free greatness. As Giacchino's sweet, yet plaintive score played in the background during that segment, tears came to my eyes and I felt the audience around me also cave in to the weight of the emotion on display.

If there's any flaw that can be attributed to Up, it's that it tries to do too much. That opening 10 minutes is completely rooted in the real world, where real people deal with real joys and real problems (Ellie even discovers that she is infertile during this portion of the film). However, the film rapidly veers into a world full of flying houses, talking dogs, fantastical inventions, and exotic creatures. Tonally, it gets a bit muddy towards the end, as the film takes us from extreme pathos to manic whimsy in the blink of an eye. Yet how often can it be said that a film, especially an animated one, is too ambitious? A forgivable fault, to be sure.

I was also mildly disappointed that the film wastes an opportunity to be a serious meditation on the rigors of aging. Up begins by reflecting on how one copes with the loss of a loved one in old age, but for the rest of the film, Carl's age is merely played for laughs; he's spry, limber, even acrobatic when the film needs him to be, but his body also gives out just when a comedic beat is necessary. This reflects some of my broader problems with the film — namely, that Up sometimes doesn't know what type of movie it wants to be.

Nonetheless, as is usual for Pixar, Up does so much right that it's easy to forgive these slight missteps. The performances are amazing: Asner is perfect as the cantankerous and deeply conflicted Carl Frederickson, but it's Jordan Nagai as Russell, the young Wilderness Explorer, that steals the show. Nagai, a first-time actor, successfully manages to straddle the line between annoying and adorable, and his performance as Russell gives what would otherwise be a more ponderous movie a much-needed jolt of life. While Russell's dialogue makes his character arc predictable, it's infused with so much sweetness that it will still melt your heart.

And of course, the visuals (my God, the visuals)!. Pixar continues to reveal themselves willing to push the envelope with their visual wizardry, and Up is no exception. The balloon physics are so detailed that they occasionally appear photorealistic, and the vistas visited in this film are unmatched in their breathtaking beauty. Yet one of the things I was most impressed with was the character design for Carl Frederickson. With his square jaw, stout body, and grizzled face, Carl is an imposing figure, but the combination of his nuanced emoting and Asner's performance make him an unlikely lovable hero.

In the end, I love Up because despite its flaws, it is ridiculously effective. Up transported me to another world and allowed me to experience that thrill of adventure, previously felt only in films as great as Raiders of the Lost Ark . But perhaps the film's biggest achievement is the eternal truth that it speaks to: That to experience true love and friendship is one of life's greatest adventures.

/Film Rating: 9 out of 10

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Movie Review: In ‘The Bikeriders,’ the birth of a subculture on two wheels

This image released by Focus Features shows Jodie Comer, left, and Austin Butler in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Austin Butler, left, and Jodie Comer in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Austin Butler, left, and Tom Hardy in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Damon Herriman, left, and Tom Hardy in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Jodie Comer in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Austin Butler in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Emory Cohen, from left, Jodie Comer and Austin Butler in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Tom Hardy in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Michael Shannon in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

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Still images have been a source of wonder and mythology in the films of Jeff Nichols.

“Mud,” Nichols’ Twain-soaked Mississippi fable, seemed derived from the magical sight of a boat held aloft by a tree. “Loving,” about a ‘60s interracial marriage, took inspiration from tender Life magazine photographs taken of the real-life couple. Nichols’ latest, “The Bikeriders,” is based on photographer Danny Lyon’s 1968 book of the same name, for which he spent four years with a Chicago motorcycle club.

It’s not hard to see what Nichols saw in Lyon’s black-and-white stills. There’s the stylish raw materials — the chrome bikes, the slicked back hair, the black leather jackets. But there’s also a just emerging antiauthoritarian, easy-riding spirit and camaraderie. Like the central figures of “Loving,” they are classically drawn outsiders who encapsulate something glorious and uneasy about freedom in America.

In the exhilarating first half of “The Bikeriders,” which opens in theaters Friday, Nichols is less compelled to build a narrative around his bike gang, the Vandals (based on the Outlaws) than summoning an intoxicating atmosphere reminiscent of those old photographs. “The Bikeriders” eventually becomes saddled with heavier plot mechanics — you can almost sense his riders growing weary from having to strap narrative devices onto their bikes. The movie wants to ride, but it’s not sure how much story to pack for the trip. But this is a vivid dramatization of the birth of an American subculture.

The framing device Nichols settles on is Lyon, himself, played by Mike Faist, who’s conducting interviews for his book. His conversations with a woman named Kathy ( Jodie Comer ) bookend and sporadically narrate the movie.

Kathy, also based on a real person, seems at first an unlikely spokesperson for the gang. She speaks with a thick Illinois accent (an actorly distraction throughout) and has no affection for motorcycle riders. But one night at a bar, she sees Benny ( Austin Butler ) across the smokey room and, even if she doesn’t admit it at that moment, falls for him. Again, it’s not hard to see why. Butler is by now well removed from Elvis Presley but the suppleness with which he can sink into mid-century America is no less apparent. Benny drives Kathy home, parks his bike outside the place and patiently waits for her boyfriend to skip town.

Nichols, a devotee of films like “Hud” and “Cool Hand Luke,” is a filmmaker who works very consciously within classic American idioms. In Butler he has his James Dean, making Tom Hardy his Marlon Brando. Hardy plays Johnny, Benny’s best pal and the one who starts up and presides over the Vandals. (The “whaddya got” clip of Brando from “The Wild One” is even briefly seen on a small TV in “The Bikeriders.”)

The Vandals, as a club, start about as simply as kids might call a tree house to order. They’re a bunch of guys who like riding motorcycles and like talking about them. Simple as that. But men come like moths to a flame, attracted by the tough lifestyle, the cool jackets with patches and a way out of mainstream America. Among them are Cal (Boyd Holbrook), Cockroach (Emory Cohen), Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus) and Zipco (Michael Shannon).

“Obscenity and motorcycles travel hand in hand,” someone says, with pride.

The early days of the group are, it would seem, a lot of fun. Barroom brawls and riding carefree through corn fields. Most of these guys don’t have much, but they have each other. And their loyalty is total.

Kathy isn’t so sure sure. She watches the growing gang — a completely male bunch — with skepticism and fear for Benny. (In a scene teased in the film’s opening, he’s beaten badly enough to be hospitalized.) Sometimes, they throw down purely for fun. They are the original Fight Cub.

But soon, Kathy isn’t the only one with doubts at what they’ve created. As their gang grows, what the Vandals embody is less clear, even to Johnny and Benny. Some of the new entrants are coming straight back from Vietnam. Their old hijinks give way to more serious crimes. In one chastening scene, Kathy finds herself very nearly assaulted by its members. The gang — and all its posturing of toughness — begins to feel more like a trap for even its leader. Benny is drawn into a choice between the Vandals and Kathy. The homoerotic subtext is understated but not ignored; when Benny and Johnny discuss their future together, they do it gently and intimately, in the dark, like a secret confession.

As the Vandals’ original ideals disintegrate, it can feel like “The Bikeriders” gets locked into a familiar “Goodfellas”-like structure, but with a telling shift in narrator for a drama that’s ultimately about masculinity. This is a movie that’s juggling a lot of contradictory ambitions. It wants to be authentic but it wants to tell a grand America saga. It wants mythology but also naturalism. It’s those instincts that have made Nichols one of the most essential filmmakers of his generation, even if the results have sometimes been underwhelming by a hair. Even his best, most firmly rooted films (“Take Shelter,” “Mud”) strive for a balancing act that can be elusive.

But I think it’s those dual impulses — and, again, all the cool jackets — that makes “The Bikeriders” work. The movie is unabashedly romantic about the Vandals but it’s equally dubious about the rugged masculinity they embody, too. “The Bikeriders” has its hands firmly on the throttle just it does the brakes.

“The Bikeriders,” a Focus Features release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language throughout, violence, some drug use and brief sexuality. Running time: 116 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle at: http://x.com/jakecoyleAP

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Pixar's stunning adventure is an upper for everyone.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Meant to entertain, but might inspire an interest

Carl and Russell become good friends and teach eac

Strong role models for multi-generational friendsh

There's some mild peril from thunderstorms hitting

This movie is part of the Disney-Pixar dynasty, wi

Two adults drink out of champagne flutes.

Educational Value

Meant to entertain, but might inspire an interest in travel and adventure.

Positive Messages

Carl and Russell become good friends and teach each other about responsibility, caring for nature, and the movie's main theme about "the spirit of adventure." Loyalty, grit, teamwork, and creative thinking are also themes.

Positive Role Models

Strong role models for multi-generational friendship and a successful marriage. Young Ellie befriends an otherwise lonely young Carl; they become best friends and later a married couple. He takes care of her after she grows ill, and he embarks on a journey to fulfill a lifelong dream of theirs. Russell is a spunky, determined kid. Characters demonstrate integrity, empathy, and gratitude.

Violence & Scariness

There's some mild peril from thunderstorms hitting the house, and a sad sequence that shows Ellie sick in the hospital and then Carl in a funeral home, surrounded by flowers. Both a real gun and a tranquilizer gun are fired at various characters. A house gets set on fire. Younger kids might be scared by some 3-D images that jump at them from the screen, as well as Muntz' dogs, which sometimes appear seemingly out of nowhere, growling and angry. Muntz tries to get rid of Carl and Russell, even if it means trying to kill them. One character falls to his death.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

This movie is part of the Disney-Pixar dynasty, with merchandise and other marketing tie-ins associated with the film.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Up is the second Pixar movie (after The Incredibles ) to receive a PG rating, mostly due to a few potentially frightening scenes involving a band of trained talking dogs trying to get rid of the protagonists, some moments where characters almost fall from a floating house, and some guns firing. That said, it's Disney/Pixar, so the violence is mild. Viewers should note that an early wordless sequence follows an emotional and potentially upsetting trajectory that could trigger questions about old age, illness, and death. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (250)
Kids say (264)

Based on 250 parent reviews

Very sad and emotionally intense

Might be intense for younger children, what's the story.

In UP, septuagenarian Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner ) and his wife Ellie had a shared dream since childhood: to visit exotic Paradise Falls in South America, a place the once-famous explorer Charles Muntz ( Christopher Plummer ) claimed was the most beautiful in the world. After Ellie dies, Carl decides to make his beloved late wife's dream come true and unveils hundreds of helium balloons to fly his house to Paradise Falls. Unbeknownst to Carl, a young Wildlife Explorer scout named Russell (Justin Nagai) is along for the ride. When they finally arrive, the odd couple discovers that Muntz is more interested in killing an elusive rare bird than living in paradise.

Is It Any Good?

Pixar has brought to life a multi-generational odd couple in a film that's visually stunning, surprisingly touching, and unsurprisingly delightful. After nine films, Pixar's legend is well known; it's the only studio with a perfect record both commercially (each of its releases has grossed more than $150 million) and critically. Up is no exception on the latter front, and considering the demand for family entertainment, it's sure to be a big hit money-wise, too.

The beginning of the film is an unexpected tearjerker following the entire marriage -- from first sight to widowhood -- of adventurous-at-heart Carl and Ellie Fredricksen. But he bulk of the story, as the trailer promises, is Carl and Russell's amazing skyward journey to Paradise Falls. Above the gorgeous and colorful animated vistas, Pixar's astonishing achievement is the sweet, funny, lasting relationship that it's odd-couple heroes share.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Up 's central relationship between Carl and Russell. What does the movie have to say about multigenerational friendships? What does a young boy teach an elderly man, and vice versa?

Kids: What kind of adventures do you dream of having? Does an adventure need to be somewhere far away?

How do the characters in Up demonstrate empathy and teamwork ? What about integrity and gratitude ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Movie Details

In theaters : May 29, 2009
On DVD or streaming : November 10, 2009
Cast : Christopher Plummer , Ed Asner , Jordan Nagai
Director : Pete Docter
Studio : Pixar Animation Studios
Genre : Family and Kids
Topics : Adventures , Friendship , Great Boy Role Models
Character Strengths : Empathy , Gratitude , Integrity , Teamwork
Run time : 98 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : some peril and action
Award : Kids' Choice Award
Last updated : May 15, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Movies | ‘Horizon: Chapter 1’ review: Saddle up for a…

Things To Do

Movies | ‘horizon: chapter 1’ review: saddle up for a long, loping ride.

Kevin Costner in "Horizon: An American Saga." (Richard Foreman/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Things could perk up and get rolling come August, when Chapter 2 of this reverently labeled “American Saga” continues in theaters, to be followed by Chapter 3 (currently filming) and then, finances and distribution/streaming arrangements with Warner Bros. and Max willing, the big finale. But Chapter 1 feels like throat-clearing — a serviceable horse opera overture to a curiously dispassionate passion project.

“Horizon” dates back to the 1980s, when Costner’s career was launched by “Silverado” (1985), in which he was the liveliest element by far, playing the giddy, loose-cannon brother of Scott Glenn. Rewatching “Silverado” today, in the wake of Costner’s familiar, surly, “Yellowstone” grimacing, it’s astonishing how little remains of that earlier performer, and it’s not just the age difference. Now 69, Costner has settled in a narrow, slot-canyon sort of macho archetype, which has worked well for him, depending on the scripts. Here and there in “Horizon” it works, too, when the calculation falls away and a stray moment of hidden feeling surfaces, quietly.

But actors are at the mercy of their material. Chapter 1 of “Horizon” is wide but shallow, and wanly dramatized in between the passages of violence, some well-staged and effective, others more generically brutal. The movie surely wins the Loudest Splurch sound design award; when an Apache arrow hits a human target, it’s as if the arrows were literally wired for sound.

The first “Horizon” film divides itself into what feels like three one-hour TV episodes. Cowriters Jon Baird and Costner lay many miles of narrative track designed to transport several groups of characters in different parts of the West to the same destination, a tiny riverbank town in the making called Horizon in the San Pedro Valley, aka John Ford country. This is where the film starts, in 1859.

It’s Apache land, and the white colonizers (fine, “settlers”) have put literal stakes in it to claim it for themselves. This leads quickly to a retaliatory Apache massacre, contextualized a bit by a handful of scenes in Chapter 1 devoted to, or at least concerned with, Apache warrior brothers Pionsenay (Owen Crow Shoe) and Taklishim (Tatanka Means) and their tribal factions. Two survivors of the massacre, brutally widowed Frances (Sienna Miller) and her daughter Lizzie (Georgia MacPhail), are taken in by the kindly Union Army officer played by Sam Worthington at a nearby fort. Love is in the air, but demurely.

Costner directed “Horizon” in addition to co-writing, producing and partially financing the project; he has acknowledged planning to spend $100 million or more of his own money to conjure all four chunks of the saga into existence. As an actor, he rides into Chapter 1 at the one-hour point, as tight-lipped Hayes Ellison, horse trader and former gunslinger. He’s in pre-statehood Montana territory for reasons to be named later, and he’s soon tangling with a random scumbag from a mean, bloodthirsty local clan. Haphazardly, Costner’s character ends up heading out on the trail with wily sex worker Marigold (Abbey Lee) who’s taking care of a baby, while bad men pursue them and Costner’s faraway wife remains, for now, unseen and far away.

Meanwhile, along the Santa Fe Trail, Luke Wilson plays a wagon train leader trying to keep his Horizon-bound settlers alive in the hot Kansas territory, with little water, plenty of crises and, at one point, a couple of pervy Peeping Toms spying on the best-looking female while she sneaks a starlit shower for herself. Wilson’s character, the voice of reason, basically shames the woman for hogging the water and catching the menfolk’s eye. You can see what Costner and Baird are attempting here, adding this tidbit about the scarcity of the water supply. But dialogue like this, and too much of “Horizon,” is just plain flat. I don’t think Costner’s his own best colleague here, either as writer or director. He and his cinematographer J. Michael Muro have an eye for topography, and backdrops, but “Horizon” needs more than horizons.

So you take what you can get. I got some honest satisfaction from Miller’s valiant attempt to make her saintly cliché human, and from the ease and laconic command Michael Rooker (as a Union Army officer and sounding board for Danny Huston’s fort commander) brings to the material. Chapter 1 ends with a sizzle reel of Chapter 2 highlights, giving audiences a sense of where all the characters are headed, and introducing new, big-city ones. The only thing missing is a voiceover: “Next time on ‘Horizon’ …”

I can’t help but wonder if Costner didn’t take his cues from the wrong kind of Westerns. Watch Anthony Mann’s “The Naked Spur” (1953) sometime, which gave James Stewart one of his most bracing challenges; the movie’s scenic but purposeful, lean, compact, character-driven, full of shifting allegiances and centered, however uneasily, by a fascinatingly self-doubting protagonist. Costner has it in him to work that same territory. “Horizon,” so far, anyway, is more about a certain set of movie memories than a movie of its own.

“Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” — 2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for violence, some nudity and sexuality)

Running time: 3:01

How to watch: Premieres in theaters June 27

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

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Screen Rant

10 great movies that critics thought were just average.

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10 Criticisms Of Great Movies That Don't Hold Up

10 movie & tv reboots that were criticized by the original creators, 15 movies that have the same rotten tomatoes critic & audience scores.

Critics can be wrong about movies: Saw, The Shining, Alien, and Psycho were initially panned.
Taste is subjective: Some movies are divisive, like Star Wars, Forrest Gump, and Fight Club.
Movies can improve over time: Titanic and Dirty Dancing were initially met with mixed reviews but are now beloved.

Movies are subjective in many ways, but most of the time, there is a consensus about movies that work and those that don't, and occasionally, the critics get it really wrong. Movies exist as a way to entertain, engage, and present ideas to an audience . This could be through exciting action stories, gripping horrors, charming romance, or a variety of other methods. However, while the movies can be subjectively good or bad, there is an entire profession built around critiquing these projects and determining their overall quality.

When it comes to making any recommendation, taste is subjective. This is true for food critics, and it's certainly true for movie critics . However, with the help of websites that compile and collect dozens of reviews, it can be helpful to get a general idea of what many people are thinking at a glance. But even the vocal majority can get something considerably wrong. This is clearly seen with several movies that currently stand out as some of the best and most celebrated of all time, but upon their initial release, critics just didn't get the movie, and the response was lukewarm to negative.

Metacritic Score: 45

Horror is potentially one of the most subjective areas of film. Within one genre, there are countless horror subgenres , and while there exists a dedicated fanbase who praise and embrace shocking body horror films with glee, there is another side who reject those same films, while lauding psychological horrors. These divisions exist across the board in horror fandom, with slashers, supernatural, found footage, paranormal and sci-fi horrors all having their own audience.

For the ultra violent and gory Saw , it appears that critics largely fell into one of two camps. Either they praised the film for its clever storytelling and twists, or they found it tiresome, disturbing, or too focused on symbolism. On Rotten Tomatoes , Saw currently maintains a 50% critics score , while the audience is much more favorable with a score of 84%. However, many lists of the greatest horror movies and franchises will include Saw thanks to the ingenious and innovative story, and the creative twists throughout.

Saw is available to stream on Netflix.

The Shining 30 Days of Night split image

10 Amazing Horror Films That Critics Thought Were Average

Not every horror movie is appreciated fully in its time, with several fantastic films in the genre getting only mixed to average reviews.

9 The Shining

Metacritic score: 68.

Stanley Kubrick is one of the most divisive filmmakers of all time, having created several movies that earned praise and criticism in equal measure. However, when his masterpiece, The Shining , was released in 1980, it failed to resonate with critics of the time. The film was an adaptation of a novel by Stephen King, who had recently seen huge success thanks to the 1976 adaptation of another novel, Carrie . King and Kubrick clashed in their ideas for The Shining , and critics appeared to stand with King as they struggled to understand the film and its motivations .

The characters were weird, and ultimately, these details added up to result in critics finding the movie boring, or overly experimental

The Shining was a slow burn horror which was released in an era where that was not the standard. The film was full of bizarre and jarring imagery which put viewers at ill ease, but this was also unusual for horrors at the time . The characters were weird, and ultimately, these details added up to result in critics finding the movie boring, or overly experimental. Popular critic, Gene Siskel, remarked in his own Chicago Tribune review that the movie was "a crashing disappointment," a sentiment which was echoed by many other critics at the time.

The Shining is available to stream on Max.

Metacritic Score: 89

Alien may have been the movie that made Ridley Scott a household name, but when the movie initially released, it was viewed as largely mediocre and unimaginative. Numerous critics from various publications compared the film to poorly constructed horror flicks that were purely built to get cheap screams. Vincent Canby of the New York Times gave the film an overtly average review where he pointed to the areas where the film was lacking.

It's an old-fashioned scare movie about something that is not only implacably evil but prone to jumping out at you when (the movie hopes) you least expect it.

Despite Sigourney Weaver's outstanding performance, early critics failed to see anything that elevated the film, but upon further reflection, potentially brought on by the success Alien had at the Awards season in 1980, the movie was soon receiving overwhelming praise. Now, Scott, Weaver and Alien are all held in the highest regard when it comes to sci-fi and horror . However, it's astonishing to think that anyone could have watched the incredible sci-fi horror and special and practical effects of Alien and not find it groundbreaking.

Alien is available to stream on Star+.

(Jennifer-Lawrence-as-Mother)-from-Mother!-&-(Leonardo-DiCaprio-as-Dr.-Randall-Mindy)-from-Don't-Look-Up

10 Movies That Critics Either Loved Or Absolutely Hated

The most divisive movies ever split critics, creating two groups of those who either loved or hated the movie, for sometimes mysterious reasons.

Metacritic: 97

Alfred Hitchcock is another popular horror director who built his reputation on pushing boundaries and building suspense in his works. While Hitchcock had a strong track record, Psycho hit a nerve with early reviewers, which resulted in reviews that went so far as to call the movie "A blot on an honourable career" (via The Financial Times ). The movie's actors, story, and twist ending were all regarded as some of Hitchcock's weakest work to date.

However, today, Psycho is held in the highest regard, often lauded as Hitchcock's most influential and enduring work, and it remains a film which is often held as inspiration for aspiring horror creatives. The movie appeared to be shocking enough that some reviewers refused to watch it in its entirety, and it certainly broke new ground on things which had never been done before in film , such as the first toilet flush to appear and be heard audibly on film (via CBR ). Potentially, the critics of the time were too sensitive to fully appreciate the genius and vision of Psycho .

Psycho is available to stream on Max.

Metacritic Score: 75

However, it is not only horror films that critics may initially react negatively towards before having a change of heart. Occasionally, epic blockbusters can also be misjudged. By 1997, James Cameron had already proven his abilities when it came to sci-fi epics , but his ability to write emotional and dramatic films was less widely accepted. His box-office shattering Titanic , which would go on to become the highest grossing movie of all time for over a decade, was initially in receipt of mixed reviews, with some high praise, but also some scathing reviews.

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times wrote one such review which was titled "'Titanic' Sinks Again (Spectacularly)." As if the title was not critical enough, Turan went on to berate Cameron's ability to write emotional stories . However, the film's reception in the following months and years have clearly set it apart as one of the greatest, and most profitable films, of all time.

Titanic is available to stream on Star+.

The Irishman Robert de Niro and Al Pacino

While there are plenty of criticisms that can be targeted at great movies, sometimes they don't always hold up when properly examined.

5 Star Wars

Metacritic score: 90.

Star Wars is now one of the biggest franchises in all of film, with multiple mainline trilogies, spin-off movies, live-action TV shows, spin-offs and cartoons, but when the first movie came out in 1977, the film had an uphill climb . Establishing a sci-fi opera in a landscape where that didn't exist was no easy feat. While the film, of course, had some advocates and fans from the start, there were critics who had very little positive to say about the ambitious film.

Star Wars surely has its flaws, but there is no denying the overall success and affection that fans hold for the films

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote a scathing review where she stated; "It’s an epic without a dream." Some other reviewers took a similar stance, which highlighted a lack of story beneath a shiny exterior . Star Wars surely has its flaws, but there is no denying the overall success and affection that fans hold for the films, with the franchise enduring 50 years later and still releasing new projects.

The entire Star Wars franchise is available to stream on Disney+.

4 2001: A Space Odyssey

Metacritic score: 84.

Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi epic was another recipient of mixed reviews, where his film 2001: A Space Odyssey was concerned. When the movie hit theaters in 1968, critics struggled to understand and make sense of the feature . The Hollywood Reporter recounts a moment when, during the New York premiere of the film, the entire audience of 250 people stood up and walked out early. Potentially, the groundbreaking themes and exploration of AI as a villain before the concept of AI was widely discussed made the movie a hard sell for audiences.

Now, the movie is widely regarded as a masterpiece, but as was often the case, Kubrick's genius was misunderstood. Kubrick left many aspects of his work open to interpretation, with unusual imagery and messages in his films . This has resulted in enduring discussions about his films and the deeper meanings they contain, with the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey standing out for its powerful and symbolic final sequence.

Jodie-Foster-True-Detective-Brendan-Fraser-The-Mummy-Tomb-of-the-Dragon-Emperor

Reboots tend to be some of the most highly criticized movies and shows. In some cases, the original creators have been the harshest critics.

3 Forrest Gump

Metacritic score: 82.

While many critics praised Forrest Gump and the associated performance of Tom Hanks, the movie also garnered some less favorable press. Reviewers pointed to the characters lack of intelligence, and his sheer emptiness as being a vapid and hollow basis for a feature film . They remarked on the lack of storytelling and depth, as they struggled to find meaning and purpose in the story.

The simplicity, and the symbolism worked in favor of Forrest Gump , against all odds

However, as the awards season came around and the film received outstanding critical success and an array of awards, including Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role, the film was reassessed. Ultimately, Robert Zemeckis' vision and storytelling were largely praised, and today, the film is one of the most often referenced and quoted within the landscape of film and TV. The simplicity, and the symbolism worked in favor of Forrest Gump , against all odds.

Forrest Gump is available to stream on Netflix.

2 Fight Club

Metacritic score: 67.

Fight Club is one of the most contentious films ever released, with critics hailing and haranguing the project in equal measure. While some praised the acting of Edward Norton and Brad Pitt as the central figures in the story, others suggested the film glamorized violence . The film's simple premise, with a man who goes into the community and sets up a fight club, and the rapid growth of this pointless club of brutal battery struck a nerve with reviewers.

David Fincher, the director , was also not averse to being controversial. The movie was intentional and purposeful in its approach to violence, the male psyche, and duality. The movie's twist ending cemented the story as one of the most mind-bending and thrilling movies of the 1990s , and established Fincher's strength as a director even more than his previous work. While the film remains contentious to a degree, the quality and storytelling are deserving of praise.

Fight Club is available to stream Star+ and Netflix.

Very few movies have the exact same critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes. Here are some examples movies that accomplish the rare feat.

1 Dirty Dancing

Metacritic score: 65.

While Dirty Dancing remains a guilty pleasure for many, the film was initially met with mixed reviews. Despite Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze's remarkable chemistry, some critics struggled to connect with the story as they felt it lacked one in the first place . Renowned film critic, Roger Ebert gave the film a negative review due to the film failing to follow any specific thread.

However, despite some negative reviews, many were positive, embracing the fun, frivolity, and performances of the cast. While the movie is not a musical, it requires the same amount of suspended belief in order to fully enjoy the narrative with expert dancers bursting into a spontaneous performance at the drop of a hat. The movie was designed to make people feel good, and decades later, it continues to do just that.

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‘elden ring: shadow of the erdtree’ at ‘mixed’ reviews because it’s too hard.

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Blackgoal Knight

FromSoft games are notoriously hard. The first Elden Ring had loads of very difficult zones and fights. But it appears Shadow of the Erdtree may have broken a significant amount of players, even longtime veterans.

I was actually pretty surprised to see this, given that most players given FromSoft a certain amount of leeway, but Shadow of the Ertree reviews currently put the game at “Mixed” on Steam , a far cry form Elden Ring’s “Very Positive,” the reason being it’s…too hard.

Almost every negative review cites the difficulty, with players complaining their stats or level is not protecting them from getting 2-3 shot by early enemies. Some deem it not fun, others say it’s so bad they’re just quitting outright. Here’s a small sampling of loads of these reviews:

“The gameplay makes the game hard to recommend - spastic bosses with jerky roll-catch movements and a plethora of physically nonsensical moves make the bosses in this DLC hard to put up with….As someone who beat all the Fromsoft games with gimped Lvl1 characters for fun (the base game included), I'll be calling quits on this one.”
“While the world design and colors are really beautiful and a lot of enemy designs too, there's a big problem with balancing, right now even with 60 vigor you get bishotted by nearly every enemy that's not pure fodder.”
“I really want to like this DLC but those enemies and boss fights are the worst parts of the whole game. I'm genuinely surprised whoever play tested this approved the golden hippo boss fight.”
“Was able to beat it but the bosses were so overtuned and aggressive that even being almost maxed out with the Scadutree fragments didn’t make it any easier.”

With that last one, I absolutely do not believe someone is “maxed out” with Scadutree Fragments 24 hours after release, but the overall sentiment is extremely similar across almost all of these negative reviews (though some complain about performance).

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Shadow of the Erdtree

I just…sorry, I can’t agree with this. I am not a hardcore Souls player, and I too was getting 2-3 shotted when I started Erdtree, as are level 700 people. That’s just how it starts, and after 45+ hours, I’ve beaten every boss I previously thought was impossible. There are many, many things that go into beating these tough fights, and I just think people are not putting in the time to do so as again, it is barely a day since official launch. My recommendations:

I absolutely do not believe that people have found all the Scadutree Fragments and Spirit Ashes in the available zones within this short period of time. It’s day two. Overwhelmingly this is what will make the difference even if yes, you will still take significant damage.
Matching Talismans to damage type is incredibly important here, and can be the single thing that makes a fight tolerable, even more than before.
You may have to change your build. Just because you relied on certain go-to moves or strategies in the base game, that doesn’t mean you can just brute force your way through things now. The same goes for Spirit Ashes, as some may be more valuable than others now, and you will have to power them up significantly to be useful. Also make sure to take advantage of sometimes-hard-to-spot NPC ally summons during bosses.
Some bosses you should not be fighting now. At all. There is no reason to kill the infamous Blackgaol Knight now, no matter how close to start he is. There’s no reason to take on the giant fire guy as he will 100% kill 99.99% of players for a long while. Come. Back. Later.

If you’re quitting Shadow of the Erdtree now, that’s your right, but I just don’t think most of these people are being patient enough. I too wondered if I would be able to progress during the review period at all by embargo because of how hard it was, but slowly, over time, I figured it out, I got stronger, I changed my tactics, I did it. And if I can, you can too, I believe in you.

Follow me on Twitter , Threads , YouTube , and Instagram .

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .

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Movie Review: Up (2009)

General Disdain
Movie Reviews
3 responses
--> June 8, 2009

Admit it, you’re just like me — you really had no idea what Disney Pixar’s latest animated adventure, Up was about. For me, all I knew was it had a grumpy old man, a fat kid, a talking dog and a colorful bird in it. Oh yeah, how could I forget, there was also a house, a house that was being whisked about the sky by a million balloons. How all these pieces were supposed connect to form a cohesive story was going to take a lot of effort to pull off.

Yet ain’t it something — they pulled it off. Incredibly well too, I might add. And yep, I’m stunned about it; I certainly thought Up was going to be the Pixar clunker we’ve all been awaiting for some time. Instead, this film may be their strongest showing yet.

Continuing through the door that WALL-E ripped open, Up too, tells a powerful tale without wasting words or packing the 96 minute running time with unneeded filler material.

It gets going with an unexpectedly moving and heartfelt montage laying out the younger years of Carl Fredericksen (voiced by Edward Asner). He meets Ellie, a girl who shares his passion to become a great explorer like the famed Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer). They marry and build a fulfilling life together. She dies without them ever visiting their dream location, Paradise Falls or having children. Full of loneliness and sorrow, and backed into a corner, Carl gives the proverbial finger to the fast moving society building up around him by, quite literally, taking his house up and away. To Paradise Falls, South America he goes, as a final tribute to the woman he loved so much.

The ensuing adventure itself isn’t one to write home to mommy about — at its base it is simply a flighty fight for a colorful dodo-like bird between Charles Muntz with his army of talking dogs and Carl Fredericksen aided by a Junior Wilderness Explorer named Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai). It’s fun to watch due in part to its child-infused absurdity (dogs flying planes?) but mostly because it is fantastically modeled and rendered, and because the slow transformation of Mr. Fredericksen from old codger to an old man with a new lease on life is handled better than most live-acted dramas.

The animation is, as expected, a no-brainer; Pixar has pushed the limits of computer generated realism for years. Up doesn’t noticeably break any new ground (of course I didn’t see the 3D version of the film, so I may very well be wrong here) but it doesn’t lose any either. I’ll just say the landscapes and vistas are beautifully put together. What I found particularly engrossing, which leads to my transformative point, was the small details in Fredericksen’s face and the way he carried himself. In the beginning he was forlorn and lost, and by the end he’s engaged and reinvigorated — with so much of the story being told without ever needing a word spoken. Pete Docter, the man ultimately responsible for this project, had really seen to it that Carl could give the best silent film actors a run for their money for best conveying of a story via expressions only. Ben Affleck, take notes.

Oh yeah, the music score by Michael Giacchino is damn good too. So good in fact, I wouldn’t doubt it gets an award or two.

With Up , Pixar is clearly showing how far they’ve matured. It’s not just about the cutesy characters anymore (although they’re thrown in for good measure), it’s more about the substance of the story and the manner in which it is told. The bar has been raised, DreamWorks Animation — and this is one tough act to follow.

I'm an old, miserable fart set in his ways. Some of the things that bring a smile to my face are (in no particular order): Teenage back acne, the rain on my face, long walks on the beach and redneck women named Francis. Oh yeah, I like to watch and criticize movies.

Movie Review: Ghosted (2023) Movie Review: Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) Movie Review: Fantasy Island (2020) Movie Review: Snatched (2017) Movie Review: Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) Movie Review: ABCs of Death 2 (2014) Movie Review: Life After Beth (2014)

'Movie Review: Up (2009)' have 3 comments

June 11, 2009 @ 9:43 am hanna

I admit as you, i did not know anything about Up when i went and saw it,I had not even seen the commercial! I was pleasently suprised after i saw the movie. I loved it!

April 30, 2010 @ 3:50 am IBS

This is a really good review. I havent actually seen Up yet, but it sounds like a great fun movie. I wasnt a big fan of WALL-E so I hope this is better.

May 1, 2010 @ 8:44 pm Richmond

Great movie that gives the viewer a mix of emotions.

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The Best Rated Movies On Metacritic In 2021

Lakeith Stanfield in Judas and the Black Messiah

We aren't that far along into 2021, although the raging global pandemic has made it seem much longer to many of us still stuck at home. Luckily, there have been plenty of good movies released so far to help distract us from the reality of the outside world.

The review aggregation site Metacritic, which produces a calculated average score — the Metascore — based on various reviews to present a critical consensus for a show or film, keeps a list of best movies by year. The list for the best of 2021 is already very long and full of suggestions for a viewer looking for something critics have deemed worth a watch.

A few of these films are even being talked about as potential Oscar contenders ahead of the April date for the delayed awards show , including Judas and the Black Messiah and Night of the Kings . With all that in mind, here's a breakdown of 2021's best rated movies on Metacritic.

Rocks, directed by Sarah Gavron, follows a Black British teenager living in London named Olushola Omotoso (Bukky Bakray), nicknamed "Rocks," whose mother abandons her and her younger brother. Wanting to avoid the authorities, they must fend for themselves.

The film is being praised for its sincere storytelling, as well as deft and compassionate directing of a difficult story; some outlets have called it Gavron's best film. Sight and Sound , in its review, emphasized the compassion that emanates from the film, adding that it's a "finely observed portrait of a young woman's gradual breaking down, as the usual buffers, including brotherly love and friendships, strain under her crushing responsibility."

The young woman being referred to is of course the title character played by Bukray; she and her co-stars have also earned ample praise. NOW Toronto , in its five-star review, wrote, "The cast led by Bukky Bakray and Kosar Ali are unbelievably charming and infectious. In a just world, these rockstars would become household names."

Directed by Florian Heller (co-adapting his own play with Christopher Hampton), The Father follows Anthony ( Anthony Hopkins ), an 80-year-old whose dementia is causing his mental state to become increasingly unstable. His daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) struggles to get him the care he needs — he repeatedly rejects the caregivers she introduces him to — while coming to terms with her aging father.

The film has earned widespread praise from all angles: directing, acting, writing, and so on. Of Heller's and Hampton's writing, the Wall Street Journal wrote, "What might have been predictable or sentimental in other hands becomes startling in the film's approach, as well as beguiling, unsparing, terribly moving and occasionally very funny."

Further, Hopkins and Colman — both already Oscar winners — are reeling in acclaim for their performances, both as solo actors and together. Vulture wrote that Colman's performance "extends endless patience," while Hopkins "leans into the character's capacity for cruelty as well as his vulnerability." On the subject of Hopkins portraying the well-written depiction of dementia, the piece continues, "Anthony may not have been an especially warm figure in his prime, but Hopkins makes it painfully clear that dementia is stripping him of any dignity."

Judas and the Black Messiah

Judas and the Black Messiah , directed by Shaka King (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Will Berson), is amassing acclaim for its portrayal of key members of the Black Panther Party in late 1960s Chicago. William O'Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), arrested for posing as a federal officer while attempting to hijack a car, is offered a plea deal by the FBI to gather information about the Black Panther Party, especially the Illinois chapter's charismatic and passionate leader, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya).

The New York Times calls it "the rare Hollywood film to explore a vision of Blackness that has nothing to do with white audiences." The piece claims that fact is what truly makes it as powerful as it is (although it also lauded both Kaluuya and Stanfield for stunning performances, as well as a "insightful direction" by King).

The Atlantic , meanwhile, calls it "masterful storytelling" which sheds light onto a often misrepresented piece of history. The Austin Chronicle adds to this point, writing, "The film isn't worried about convincing you of the Black Panther Party 's ideology. Assured of the righteousness of its own politics, the film forces you to catch up to the Panthers, illuminating on screen how they cultivated 'a culture that will free you' and the governmental manipulation necessary to suppress that culture." All of this goes along with what almost every publication has pointed out, which is that this 50-plus-year-old story is still very much relevant today.

Identifying Features

Identifying Features , a Spanish-language film by director Fernanda Valadez, focuses on Magdalena (Mercedes Hernandez), who loses contact with her son after he takes off from their town of Guanajuato in Mexico for the United States with a friend in hopes of finding work. Desperate to find out if he's still alive, Magdalena embarks on a journey which only becomes more dangerous along the way. Meanwhile, a young man named Miguel (David Illescas) has just returned to Mexico after being deported from the U.S.; his path becomes intertwined with Magdalena's.

Valadez has earned plentiful praise for her direction, one that critics say seamlessly melds a personal story with a bigger and broader implication in addition to successful genre blending. The AV Club declared, "Valadez finds a personal tragedy within a national one... She's made a humanitarian lament by way of a slow-burn thriller."

The review for RogerEbert.com addresses the ways in which the film reveals the flaws in the so-called American Dream, writing, " Identifying Features peels back that feel-good façade of the 'coming to America' narrative for a much more painful reality, one that feels freshly steeped in tears, heartache, and headlines."

Writer-director Valentyn Vasyanovych's Atlantis takes viewers to the near future of 2025, in which Eastern Ukraine has become essentially uninhabitable; water has to be imported in by truck, and a wall is being put up at the border. Sergiy (Andriy Rymaruk) and Katya (Liudmyla Bileka), two strangers who meet by chance, are having trouble adjusting to the new reality. Together, they decide to attempt to return to some sort of normalcy in any way that they can.

Many critics have brought up Vasyanovych's slow-paced approach for this film — it's one that may divide viewers based on taste, but here only serves the film's intentions. On this topic, The Lens wrote, "For viewers willing to submit themselves to its somber, unhurried style, Vasyanovych's feature reveals a cruel, formidable vision."

Deadline Hollywood Daily further notes the impact of a slow film, connecting it to the overall message of Atlantis : "Vasyanovych's tone is distinct; not to mention timely. The crisis he depicts can be as dull as it is dramatic, making Atlantis an eerily topical watch."

In Filippo Meneghetti's French-language drama Two of Us , viewers are introduced to Madeleine (Martine Chevallier) and Nina (Barbara Sukowa), two retired women who have secretly been in love for decades. Everyone in their lives, including their closest family members, believes that they're just neighbors, but when some unexpected events lead to Madeleine's daughter uncovering the truth about them, their relationship is turned upside down.

The direction and the lead actors are at the core of the critical reaction, while the combination of a debut director with two seasoned lead actors makes for a dynamic and compelling experience. As the AV Club writes, "It's an impressively confident debut, one that Sukowa and Chevallier bring to life with the verve of two actors in their prime."

Critics have also given Meneghetti his due as a writer as well as a director. TIME Magazine deemed it "attuned to the sensuality of older women," which is something not often seen onscreen. TIME also categorizes it as a film that "morphs from romance to woman-gone-mad psychothriller territory," adding intricate complexity to those two women and their emotional depths. All in all, the complexity of both character and plot make Two of Us one of Metacritic's top-rated films of 2021.

Debuting feature filmmaker Rose Glass also wrote the screenplay for Saint Maud , which explores faith and madness through a horror lens. Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a hospice nurse, newly devout, who develops an obsession with saving the soul of every dying patient before they go. But sinister occurrences, in addition to Maud's own sinful past, get in the way of her efforts.

First and foremost, Saint Maud 's horror elements have been singled out for their chilling effectiveness. Time Out urged moviegoers to check this film out, writing, "I've seen Saint Maud twice and each time it found new ways to freak me out. Take the leap of faith." In agreement, Culturess describes the film as "hysteria-inspiring [and] pulse-pounding," while Rolling Stone promises it to be "a holy revelation, and the sort of holy terror that restores your faith in a genre."

Aside from succeeding as a first-rate horror film, Saint Maud also serves as an impressive calling card for its writer-director. The Winnipeg Free Press describes Glass as "one of those filmmakers who arrives on the scene fully formed, with a deep, dark, intimate style, and a fearlessness about playing with genre."

The Reason I Jump

Jerry Rothwell directed this illuminating documentary, which follows five young people living with autism spectrum disorder across four continents. It's based on the book The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Japanese author Naoki Higashida, a nonverbal autistic person who also adapted it for the screen.

Much of the praise surrounding the film points to the careful, thoughtful approach taken when telling the very personal stories of these individuals' inner lives, especially considering the stigma often associated with autism. IndieWire praised the movie's overall positive message, writing, "By opting for a measured and more humble approach, The Reason I Jump solidifies as less of an instructive solution than an empathetic work of encouragement."

The film is also being lauded for connecting the viewer to its subjects with its empathetic approach. For fans of the book, Variety insists that the film does it justice: "Naoki Higashida's groundbreaking first-person account of living with autism becomes an inventive, sensuous documentary worthy of its source."

With Sator , writer-director Jordan Graham tells the story of a family that's secluded in a deserted forest filled with decaying remnants of the past. When a mysterious death occurs, the family starts drifting further apart, looking for answers; they discover that an evil force named Sator has been watching the family and influencing their decisions in an effort to eventually overcome them.

The horror element has been more than well received, cementing it as one of the best genre films of the year. As the Guardian wrote, "Graham uses darkness and a very sparse score/soundscape to create a truly disturbing work that relies not so much on gore as the uncanny in its most potent form: stillness, pools of darkness and just-visible figures."

The praise for Graham and his deft grasp on the genre has been widespread. Variety enthused, "Anyone can pull off a jump scare or three. Graham immediately manages the considerably more difficult task of conjuring a mood of general dread, suffusing ordinary settings with supernatural unease." After all, the difference between jump-scare horror and truly-uneasy-feeling horror is what often defines a lasting and memorable addition to the genre — and Sator has easily claimed its spot on Metacritic's list of the best-reviewed movies of the year.

Night of the Kings

In this French-language film by writer-director Philippe Lacôte, a young man (Barry Koné), after being caught for pickpocketing, is sent to a prison called "La Maca" in the middle of the Ivorian forest. As it turns out, this prison is ruled by its inmates rather than a staff of guards. By tradition, the Boss designates the young man the new "Roman," one who must act as a storyteller and narrate a tale to the rest of the inmates. Scared by what fate could await him, he decides to make his story — that of the legendary outlaw "Zama King" last until dawn.

RogerEbert.com calls the film "an assured, energetic piece of epic filmmaking, one that celebrates how storytelling, oration, and folklore teach us about our past so we might change our present." Lacôte's inclusion of oral storytelling traditions within the visual world of film has been one of many sources of admiration for critics.

Further, Lacôte's grasp on this interweaving of storytelling methods only adds more nuanced to an already intricate idea. The Chicago Reader says Lacôte "balances despair and levity, humanizing the forgotten through a potent blend of African fables, improvisation, and hope-however fleeting."

Acasă, My Home

A Romanian documentary by director Radu Ciorniciuc, Acasă, My Home introduces viewers to the Enache family who, for the last two decades, have been living harmoniously within nature — sleeping in a hut, catching their own fish — near an abandoned water reservoir in the Bucharest Delta wilderness. But when the area is made into a public national park, the Enaches have no choice but to say goodbye to life as they know it and move to the city. Unsurprisingly, once there, they struggle to adapt to urban life.

FilmWeek calls it "a remarkable piece of documentary access," one that illuminates the complexities of these individuals with this intimate portrait. As with the best documentaries, this is, according to the Los Angeles Times , "immersive, lively, warm and heartbreaking."

Vulture argues that the true satisfaction at the heart of the film comes in a surprising way: "The secret of this beautiful, bittersweet film about a group of people like no other is that, in the end, it's all so shockingly relatable."

Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself

In director Frank Oz's documentary Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself , a man attempts to help his audience answer the seemingly simple question, "Who am I?" DelGaudio, a storyteller and conceptual magician, created this story initially as a theater show — also directed by Oz — to explore the mysteries of human identity.

Mashable addressed the complexity of the show, stating, " In & Of Itself might be a brave act of kindness, it might be a cynical show of trickery, it might be both at once or something else altogether. Whatever else it is, it's completely fascinating."

The use of magic has been another cause for celebration among critics. DelGaudio uses it as a surface level visual experience — and also to tie into the deeper themes of the show as a whole. As Rolling Stone put it, "There's a magic here that has nothing to do with rabbits pulled from hats. It's a testament to the power of the material and the determination of its interpreters to not dilute it."

The Truffle Hunters

2021 looks like another strong year for documentaries — and The Truffle Hunters , by Italian directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, is an early addition to the list. This film takes viewers to the forests of Piedmont, Italy, where a handful of men between the ages of 70 and 80 search for the rare and expensive Alba truffle. These men are guided by secrets that have been passed down through multiple generations (and the help of their loyal dogs).

The premise is fairly simple — something that adds to the strength of the film. As Vox writes, "It's a sweet and simple movie with a healthy dose of bittersweet wistfulness for a fading world, and it's beautiful." Yet despite its simplicity, the documentary, like all good stories, possesses layers of complexity which lend themselves to its overall success. Polygon addresses this, writing, "There's a dark side to the profession, which the filmmakers acknowledge, but the most valuable thing they capture in their film is the joy of being alive, and finding something you love."

Whether you think a documentary about truffle hunting sounds fascinating or you're skeptical of the obscure subject, the overwhelmingly positive consensus can't be ignored.

Test Pattern

Written and directed by Shatara Michelle Ford, Test Pattern follows the relationship between a Black woman named Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) and her white boyfriend Evan (Will Brill). They've already faced hurdles such as questions and judgements, but when Renesha is sexually assaulted and Evan must drive her all over the city in search of a rape kit, they face their biggest test in a narrative that makes pointed observations of how modern America treats young women — especially young women of color.

The film has earned widespread praise for its thoughtful look at the systemic injustices tied to race and gender. FilmWeek calls it a "more than timely, [but] urgent" watch, while the Playlist insists that "with patient specificity, [the film] probes the institutional injustices suffered by black women to potent, provoking effect."

Overall, despite its brief length, Test Pattern will linger in viewers' minds for a long time.

Cast & crew

Kalki 2898 AD

A modern-day avatar of Vishnu, a Hindu god, who is believed to have descended to earth to protect the world from evil forces. A modern-day avatar of Vishnu, a Hindu god, who is believed to have descended to earth to protect the world from evil forces. A modern-day avatar of Vishnu, a Hindu god, who is believed to have descended to earth to protect the world from evil forces.

Amitabh Bachchan
Kamal Haasan

Ashwatthama

Supreme Yaskin

Commander Manas

Rajan - Bhairava's Landlord

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Trivia Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Hassan to work together after 39 years since Geraftaar (1985).
Soundtracks Bhairava Anthem (Telugu) Music by Santhosh Narayanan Lyrics by Ramjogayya Sastry Vocals by Deepak Blue & Diljit Dosanjh
When was Kalki 2898 AD released? Powered by Alexa
June 27, 2024 (United States)
Kalki 2898-AD
Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Vyjayanthi Movies
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₹6,000,000,000 (estimated)

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Runtime 3 hours
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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review: Faith, Meet Futility

A new tier of knights, monsters and freaks often exceeds the most demanding late-game adversaries of Elden Ring. Belief in yourself will be stretched to its limit.

In a video game screenshot, a knight in armor leans backward on the ground as a grotesque creature swings a giant club overhead.

By Yussef Cole

One of the first landmarks you’ll come across in Shadow of the Erdtree is a tall, brilliantly shining cross. Intersected at its peak by a thin crescent — most likely a representation of the Golden Order, the dark fantasy world’s ruling theocracy — it feels bluntly referential to saints and prophets and resurrections.

Shadow of the Erdtree, an expansion to the commercially successful , critically adored and deviously demanding action role-playing game Elden Ring, wants to know whose faith matters. And whether having the kind of blind faith required to follow a mysterious lord into unknown lands is a good thing after all.

Expansions to FromSoftware games tend to be steep-walled gantlets, meant to provide a heightened challenge for experienced players. Shadow of the Erdtree is no different. You will be tested. Your faith in your abilities, your belief in yourself, will be stretched to its limit.

You will need to trust, against facts and experiences, that you can take on tough enemies who would readily stomp you, that you can persevere against this new crop of knights, monsters and freaks, most of whom far exceed in rigor even the most demanding of Elden Ring’s late-game enemies.

The big bag of tricks I had gathered in Elden Ring felt largely useless against this new tier of adversaries, who casually shrugged off my fully upgraded spear tips and carefully honed sword edges. Collecting Scadutree fragments, an expansion-specific resource, grants you a much-needed boost in power.

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‘The Front Room’ Trailer: Brandy Faces Off Against a Deranged Mother-in-Law in A24 and Sam Eggers’ Horror Film

By Jack Dunn

Life is Beautiful Festival Shifts to Block Party Format; Justice, Peggy Gou, LCD Soundsystem Lead EDM Lineup 55 mins ago
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A24 has released the trailer for Sam and Max Eggers’ directorial debut “ The Front Room ,” based on the short story of the same name by Susan Hill.

According to an official logline, the film “tells the story of a young, newly pregnant couple who is forced to take in an ailing estranged stepmother.” Cast members include Brandy Norwood, Kathryn Hunter, Neal Huff and Andrew Burnap.

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Whose ratings should you trust? IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, or Fandango?

by Alex Olteanu

A data scientist investigates

Should you watch a movie? Well, there are a lot of factors to consider, such as the director, the actors, and the movie’s budget. Most of us base our decision off of a review, a short trailer, or just by checking the movie’s rating.

There are a few good reasons you would want to avoid reading reviews, or watching a trailer, although they bring much more information than a rating.

First, you may want to completely avoid spoilers, no matter how small. I understand that!

Second, it could be that you want an uninfluenced experience of watching that movie. This usually applies only to reviews, which are sprinkled with frames, like “this is a movie about the complexity of the universe” or “this movie is really not about love”. Once these frames get encoded in your short-term memory, it’s really hard to stop them from interfering with your own movie experience.

Another good reason is that if you’re tired or hurried, you might not want to read a review, let alone watch a 2-minute trailer.

So a numeric movie rating seems to be a good solution in quite a few situations, for quite a few people.

This article aims to recommend a single website to quickly get an accurate movie rating, and offers a robust, data-driven argumentation for it.

Criteria for “the best”

Making such a recommendation is a lot like saying “this is the best place to look for a movie rating,” which is an evaluative statement, resting on some criteria used to determine what is better, what is worse or worst, and what is best, in this case. For my recommendation, I will use one single criterion: a normal distribution.

The best place to look for a movie rating is to see whose ratings are distributed in a pattern which resembles the most, or is identical to, the pattern of a normal distribution, which is this: given a set of values lying in a certain interval, most of them are in the middle of it, and the few others at that interval’s extremes. Generally, this is how a normal (also called Gaussian) distribution looks like:

What’s the rationale behind this criterion? Well, from my own experience consisting of several hundred movies, I can tell that I’ve seen:

a few outstanding ones that I’ve watched several times
a couple that were really appalling, and made me regret the time spent watching them
and a whole bunch of average ones, for most of which I can’t even remember the plot anymore.

I believe that most people — whether critics, cinephiles, or just regular moviegoers — have had a similar experience.

If movie ratings do indeed express movie quality, then we should see the same pattern for both.

Given that most of us assess the bulk of movies as being of an average quality, we should see the same pattern when we analyze movie ratings. A similar logic applies for bad and good movies.

If you’re not yet persuaded that there should be such a correspondence between the patterns, think about the distribution of ratings for a single movie. As many people rate the movie, it’s not a leap of faith to assume that most often there will be many of them with similar preferences. They’ll generally agree that the movie is either bad, average, or good (I will quantify later these qualitative values). Also, there will be a few others who assess the movie with one of the other two qualitative values.

If we visualized the distribution of all the ratings for an individual movie, we would most likely see that one single cluster forms in one of the areas corresponding to a low, an average, or a high rating.

Provided most movies are considered average, the cluster around the average area has the greatest likelihood of occurring, and the other two clusters have a smaller (but still significant) likelihood. (Note that all these likelihoods can be quantified in principle, but this would require a lot of data, and would have the potential to turn this article into a book.)

The least likely would be a uniform distribution in which there are no clusters, and people’s preferences are split almost equally across the three qualitative values.

Given these likelihoods, the distribution of ratings for a large enough sample of movies should be one with a blunt cluster in the average area, bordered by bars of decreasing height (frequency), resembling, thus, a normal distribution.

If you have found all this hard to understand, consider this illustration:

IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Fandango, or Metacritic?

Now that we have a criterion to work with, let’s dive into the data.

There are a lot of websites out there that come up with their own movie ratings. I have chosen only four, mainly based on their popularity, so that I could get ratings for movies with an acceptable number of votes. The happy winners are IMDB , Fandango , Rotten Tomatoes , and Metacritic .

For the last two, I have focused only on their iconic rating types — namely the tomatometer , and the metascore — mainly because these are more visible to the user on each of the websites (meaning it’s quicker to find them). These are also shared on the other two websites (the metascore is shared on IMDB and the tomatometer on Fandango). Besides these iconic ratings, both websites also have a less-featured rating type where only users get to contribute.

I have collected ratings for some of the most voted and reviewed movies in 2016 and 2017. The cleaned dataset has ratings for 214 movies, and can be downloaded from this Github repo .

I haven’t collected ratings for movies released before 2016, simply because a slight change has occurred in Fandango’s rating system soon after Walt Hickey’s analysis , which I will refer to later in this article.

I’m aware that working with a small sample is risky, but at least this is compensated by getting the most recent snapshot of the ratings’ distributions.

Before plotting and interpreting the distributions, let me quantify the qualitative values I used earlier: on a 0 to 10 scale, a bad movie is somewhere between 0 and 3, an average one between 3 and 7, and a good one between 7 and 10.

Please take note of the distinction between quality and quantity. To keep it discernible in what follows, I will refer to ratings (quantity) as being low, average, or high. As before, the movie quality is expressed as bad, average, or good. If you worry about the “average” term being the same, don’t, because I will take care to avoid any ambiguity.

Now let’s take a look at the distributions:

At a simple glance, it can be noticed that the metascore’s histogram (that’s what this kind of graph is called) most closely resembles a normal distribution. It has a thick cluster in the average area composed of bars of irregular heights, which makes the top neither blunt, neither sharp.

However, they are more numerous and taller than the bars in each of the other two areas, which decrease in height towards extremes, more or less gradually. All these clearly indicate that most of the metascores have an average value, which is pretty much what we’re looking for.

In the case of IMDB, the bulk of the distribution is in the average area as well, but there is an obvious skew towards the highest average values. The high ratings area looks similar to what would be expected to be seen for a normal distribution in that part of the histogram. However, the striking feature is that the area representing low movie ratings is completely empty, which raises a big question mark.

Initially, I put the blame on the small sample, thinking that a larger one would do more justice to IMDB. Luckily, I was able to find a ready-made dataset on Kaggle containing IMDB ratings for 4,917 different movies. To my great surprise, the distribution looked like this:

The shape of the distribution looks almost the same as that for the sample with 214 movies, except for the low ratings area, which is in this case feebly populated with 46 movies (out of 4917). The bulk of the values is still in the average area, which makes the IMDB rating worth considering further for a recommendation, although is clearly hard to rival the metascore, with that skew.

Anyway, what’s really great about this outcome is that it can be used as a strong argument to support the thesis that the 214-movies sample is fairly representative for the whole population. In other words, there’s a greater confidence now that the results of this analysis would be the same — or at least similar — to the results reached if absolutely all the movie ratings from all the four websites were analyzed.

With this increased confidence, let’s move on to examining the distribution of Fandango’s ratings, which doesn’t seem to have changed much since Hickey’s analysis. The skew is still visibly towards the higher part of the movie rating spectrum, where most of the ratings reside. The area for the lower half of the average ratings is completely empty, just like the one for low ratings. It can easily be concluded that the distribution is quite far from fitting my criterion. Consequently, I won’t consider it further for a possible recommendation.

(I promise that the torment of scrolling up will end soon. It’s much easier to compare the distributions if they are placed one near the other, rather than having them scattered across the article.)

Lastly, the tomatometer’s distribution is unexpectedly uniform, and would look even flatter under a different binning strategy (a binning strategy is defined by the total number of bars and their ranges; you can play with these two parameters when you’re generating a histogram).

This distribution is not easy to interpret in context, because the tomatometer it’s not a classical rating, but rather represents the percentage of critics who gave a positive review to a movie. This makes it unfit for the bad-average-good qualitative framework, because it makes movies either good, either bad. Anyway, I guess it should still boil down to the same normal distribution, with most of the movies having a moderate difference between the number of positive reviews and the negative ones (rendering many ratings of 30% — 70% positive reviews), and a few movies having a significantly bigger difference, in one way or the other.

Given the last consideration and the shape of the distribution, the tomatometer doesn’t meet my criterion. It could be that a larger sample would do it more justice, but even so, if I were to recommend it, I would do it with some reserves because of the vague positive or negative rating system.

At this point of the analysis, I could say that by looking at the distributions, my recommendation is the metascore.

However, the IMDB’s distribution seems to be worth considering as well, especially if you tweak a little the rating intervals for the three qualitative categories (intervals which I defined myself, more or less arbitrarily). From this perspective, recommending the metascore by mostly doing a visual examination is clearly not enough.

So, I will try to delimit between these two by using a quantitative method.

The idea is to use the Fandango variable as a negative reference, and then determine which variable, from the IMDB rating and the metascore, is the least correlated with it (I call these variables because they can take different values — for example, the metascore is a variable because it takes different values, depending on the movie).

I will simply compute some correlation coefficients, and the variable with the smallest value will be my recommendation (I will explain then how these correlation coefficients work). But before that, let me briefly justify choosing the Fandango variable as a negative reference.

Fandango’s users love movies too much

One reason for this choice is that the distribution of Fandango’s movie ratings is the furthest from that of a normal one, having that obvious skew towards the higher part of the movie ratings spectrum.

The other reason is the cloud of suspicion around Fandango left by Walt Hickey’s analysis . On October 2015, he was also puzzled by a similar distribution, and discovered that on Fandango’s website the numerical ratings were always rounded to the next highest half-star, not to the nearest one (for example, a 4.1 average rating for a movie would have been rounded to 4.5 stars, instead of 4.0).

The Fandango team fixed the biased rating system, and told Hickey that the rating logic was rather a “software glitch” on their website, pointing towards an unbiased system on their mobile app. (More about this on Hickey’s article .) The adjustment did change some statistical parameters for the better, but not enough to convince me not to work with the Fandango variable as a negative reference.

This is what the change looks like:

Now, let’s zoom in on Fandango:

Between the metascore and the IMDB rating, which is the least correlated with the Fandango rating?

The least correlated with the Fandango rating is the metascore. It has a Pearson’s r value of 0.38 with respect to Fandango, while the IMDB rating has a value of 0.63.

Now let me explain all this.

As two variables change, taking different values, they are correlated if there’s a pattern corresponding to both changes. Measuring correlation simply means measuring the extent to which there is such a pattern.

One of the ways to perform this measure is to compute the Pearson’s r. If the value is +1.0, it means there’s a perfect positive correlation, and if it’s -1.0, it means there’s a perfect negative correlation.

The extent to which the variables are correlated decrease as the Pearson’s r approaches 0, from both the negative and the positive side.

Let’s better visualize this:

Now, to put the abstraction above into context, if we compare how the values for two rating types change — say Fandango’s and IMDB’s — we can determine the degree to which there’s a pattern corresponding to both changes.

Given the correlation coefficients just mentioned, there is a pattern between Fandango and IMDB to a greater extent than is for Fandango and the metascore. Both coefficients are positive, and, as such, the correlation is said to be positive, which means that as Fandango’s ratings go up, IMDB’s ratings tend to go up as well, more than the metascores do.

Put differently, for any given movie rating on Fandango, it is more probable that the metascore is going to be more different from it than the IMDB rating.

The verdict: use Metacritic’s metascore

All in all, I recommend checking the metascore whenever you are looking for a movie rating. Here’s how it works, and its downsides.

In a nutshell, the metascore is a weighted average of many reviews coming from reputed critics. The Metacritic team reads the reviews and assigns each a 0–100 score, which is then given a weight, mainly based on the review’s quality and source. You can find more about their rating system here .

Now, I just want to point out a few downsides of the metascore:

The weighting coefficients are confidential, so you won’t get to see the extent to which each review counted in the metascore.
You’ll have a rough time finding metascores for less-known movies that appeared before 1999, the year Metacritic was created.
Some recent movies whose main language is not English aren’t even listed on Metacritic. For example, the Romanian movies Two Lottery Tickets (2016) and Eastern Business (2016) are not listed on Metacritic, while they are on IMDB, with ratings.

Few more words

To sum up, in this article I made a single recommendation of where to look for a movie rating. I recommended the metascore, based on two arguments: its distribution resembles the most a normal one, and it is the least correlated with the Fandango rating.

All the quantitative and the visual elements of the article are reproducible in Python, as it is shown here .

Thanks for reading! And happy movie-going!

If this article was helpful, share it .

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