Alison Willmore

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New York Magazine (Vulture), The Playlist
For 389 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 40% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 59% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Alison Willmore's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Petite Maman
Lowest review score: 0 Melania
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 202 out of 389
  2. Mixed: 143 out of 389
  3. Negative: 44 out of 389
389 movie reviews
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    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Another Simple Favor
    Kendrick and Lively have an undeniable chemistry that allows you to buy that these two characters really do like one another, despite the circumstances. But that only matters when those circumstances mean something, and by the end of Another Simple Favor, they don’t — nothing matters at all.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Don't Breathe 2
    We love charismatic murders and compelling monsters, but it’s always a little more comfortable to love them when they appear to be acting for good. The best thing about Don’t Breathe 2 is the way it constantly undermines that comfort, as though demanding we question the desire to assign hero and villain roles at all.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Funny Pages
    A debut as packed with promise as with underdeveloped ideas.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Saltburn
    Saltburn’s seductive imagery outweighs its obvious attempts at provocation. And while it does end up making being rich look pretty sweet, that’s not exactly a revelation worth hanging a whole movie on.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    You're Cordially Invited
    You’re Cordially Invited might have been better off ditching the rom of it all entirely, but Stoller is good enough at this that even if the rest of his movie consists of two slightly discordant halves, both are pretty solid.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    The Accountant 2
    The new movie leans into comedy in ways that veer toward the cutesy — Chris at a speed dating event, Chris at a line-dancing night — but the scenes of the brothers together are great, providing glimpses of the co-dependent boys they were before they grew into trauma-stunted men who regularly commit acts of bloodshed.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Roofman
    The sympathy Roofman extends toward the break room of its big-box stores and the low-ceilinged place of worship where Leigh sings in the choir every Sunday is more moving than its treatment of its protagonist, offering an appreciation that these places could be anywhere and at the same time are highly specific.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Heart Eyes
    Heart Eyes is strong enough that the shortcomings that keep it in the realm of the passable instead of the actually good are maddening.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Beastie Boys Story
    They’re stories you can find in the book, accompanied by ones from a multitude of other contributors, including Schellenbach, who gets to give her own account of what happened. So why not just read that?
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    The Invisible Man
    The Invisible Man is not as smart as it could have been, but the concept is ingenious even if the execution gets slapdash. And with Moss at the center, it doesn’t matter all that much — she sells what’s approached as B-movie material with the unwavering dedication of someone starring in a prestige biopic.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Together
    Brie and Franco, in providing nuance and texture to Millie and Tim, may actually have worked against a film that would be better off allowing its characters to be in an unhealthy relationship from the beginning — a choice that would make the ending feel more unsetting rather than just a flubbed allegory.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Ammonite
    Ammonite is Winslet’s movie to shoulder, and she carries it as far as she can.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Joy Ride
    Watching the film is a reminder that the most boundary-pushing comedy isn’t about risqué content but a willingness to get uncomfortable and the confidence to assume audiences will join along in that journey. Joy Ride instead seeks out the warm fuzzies in a way that feels like a surrender.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Marry Me
    For all that it has been positioned as the comeback of the rom-com queen, Marry Me isn’t really a return to form for the genre. Instead, it aims to have things both ways, to have the glamour and the buoyant fantasy and to also be more textured in its treatment of its characters and their relationship.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Selah and The Spades
    Selah and the Spades ends just as it feels like it’s really picking up momentum, which is the major frustration of the film and also, likely, part of the reason it was picked up by Amazon both as a release and the basis for a possible series adaptation.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Crimes of the Future
    Seydoux may exude voluptuous sensuality, and Stewart may be performing a whispery, dystopian take on a sultry librarian, but the film itself has an aloof, clinical quality. What interests it is not the potential of our physical forms for pleasure and revulsion, but their inevitable failure.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Drive-Away Dolls
    One senses this is a mundane story that’s trying to be something stranger and more buoyant — the film’s off-kilter sensibility keeps threatening to fade away, like it’s stuck at the tail end of a high.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Sorry, Baby
    It’s a film about language in ways that are promising but more often exasperating.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Eddington
    No genre really makes more sense for this moment than horror — except, maybe, for black comedy, and Aster’s bracingly nasty but centerless new film offers plenty of both.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    The Running Man
    Wright’s movie, aside from its mess of an ending, is a propulsive and generally fun affair that sends Powell careering around the Eastern Seaboard like the Tom Cruise successor he’s so determined to become, even if he’s not entirely plausible as a guy who’s volcanic with anger.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Queer
    The stylistic choices Guadagnino makes throughout Queer are invariably more engaging than the central story itself, no matter what the filmmaker tries unsuccessfully to will it into.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Babes
    I cried at the end of Babes, despite thinking that it wasn’t working all that well for most of its run time. Movies can be funny that way, leaving you indifferent for long stretches and then walloping you with an emotional moment that’s even more effective for how you didn’t see it coming.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    A Different Man
    Pearson, as happy-go-lucky charmer, also brings a burst of much-needed vitality to this droll but overly thought-through film.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Dicks: The Musical
    Dicks: The Musical is never as outrageous as it clearly would like to be . . . But its determination to avoid any trace of self-importance or greater meaning is admirable in its own right — embracing the freedom to just be ridiculous.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    The Way Back
    It’s a performance that suggests the most interesting stretch of Affleck’s career as an actor is still to come.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    The Beekeeper
    The Beekeeper takes a Mad Libs approach to moviemaking.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    What Happens Later
    The best parts of What Happens Later are when it lets its characters just be people who still want to find love and find some of its warmth in the embers of this long-ago relationship. It’s too bad there aren’t more of those moments.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Django Unchained
    The film also comes across like a rough cut that was never looked at as a coherent whole, and some segments that start off as promising become interminable while others feel entirely unnecessary. There's no pressure on or expectation for Tarantino to please anyone other than himself, and the film feels overstuffed with ideas that should have been pruned.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Blitz
    It’s the worst movie McQueen’s made, which by wider standards means that it’s still not bad. But Blitz’s admirable intentions consistently outstrip its execution, which is clunky and full of narrative artifices required to keep its angel-faced lead on the run from danger and from the authorities who intend to send him back to the train station.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Alison Willmore
    Les Miserables
    Even at a generous running time that matches this season's other giant award candidates, Les Misérables seems like it's in a hurry, skittering from one number to the next without interlude. After Hathaway's early high point, it starts to feel numbing, an unending barrage of musical emoting carrying us through Valjean's adopting of Cosette, the latter's first encounter with Marius, the battle at the barricade and a last hour that can feel like it's a non-stop series of death arias.
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