Bob Mondello

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NPR
For 276 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 68% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 29% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Bob Mondello's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 12 Years a Slave
Lowest review score: 10 I Am Number Four
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 214 out of 276
  2. Mixed: 55 out of 276
  3. Negative: 7 out of 276
276 movie reviews
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    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Bob Mondello
    Mamma Mia!
    This plot is not being taken terribly seriously. It's mostly a pretext for songs that are mostly a pretext for acting silly.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Bob Mondello
    The Social Network
    Terrific entertainment - an unlikely thriller that makes business ethics, class distinctions and intellectual-property arguments sexy, that zips through two hours quicker than you can say "relationship status," and that'll likely fascinate pretty much anyone not named Zuckerberg.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 85 Bob Mondello
    The Cove
    Psihoyos describes his troops as a kind of "Ocean's 11" team, and that's apt enough: He's making a real-life action caper, a heist with potential consequences in the real world. The buildup to getting the shots they want has a good deal of natural tension. And the payoff -- well, let's just say it's devastating.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 55 Bob Mondello
    The Lucky Ones
    There's something centrally pat and predictable about the coincidence-laden story, and by the time they get to Vegas, The Lucky Ones has been all but done in by a surfeit of serendipity.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 70 Bob Mondello
    Fanboys
    You'd think the weakest link in Fanboys would be that it's all in-jokes, but they're actually not so "in" that a casual fan won't get them.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Bob Mondello
    Blindness
    Moore is always watchable, Ruffalo and Bernal get a nice rivalry going without ever establishing eye contact (as it were), and Danny Glover has some nice moments in an underdeveloped part as an older man who finds, to his benefit, that love is blind.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Mondello
    How About You ...
    A bit abrupt about its mood-changing revelations and a bit sketchy about its put-out-to-pasture characters. But it's a warmly engaging romp nonetheless.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Bob Mondello
    Angels & Demons
    Presumably in response to criticism that "The Da Vinci Code" was static and talky, director Ron Howard has made Angels & Demons frantic -- and, well, talky.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Bob Mondello
    The Happening
    If what audiences are looking for is a thrill ride, or even a pervasive eeriness, The Happening's just not happening.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Bob Mondello
    Daddy Longlegs
    The Safdies filmed with handheld cameras, an obvious affection for New York and its denizens, and a script that includes so much structured improvisation that it's hard to imagine any of the dialogue was actually written down. Not surprisingly, the result is a character study with an almost documentary feel to it.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 55 Bob Mondello
    Miracle at St. Anna
    Even in a film that clocks in at a quasi-epic 2 hours and 40 minutes, that's just too much narrative. And matters aren't helped by the fact that Lee, who has never staged battle sequences before, hasn't quite got the rhythms or camera angles right.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Bob Mondello
    Frost/Nixon
    A case is being made here that it wasn't really Frost who did Nixon in: It was Nixon's old nemesis, the TV camera.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Bob Mondello
    The Day the Earth Stood Still
    Dunno about the Earth, but time certainly stands still for a goodly portion of Scott Derrickson's expensively produced but utterly boneheaded remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Bob Mondello
    Boy A
    Jack, as played by Andrew Garfield, comes across as agonized, desperately anxious to get things right -- something you might also say about the filmmakers, who have turned Boy A's very particular story into a scary, universal and wrenching social statement.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Mondello
    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
    It's a more mature magic than in previous Potter movies.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Bob Mondello
    The Tale of Despereaux
    A little slow for the very youngest kids -- though the messages it imparts are certainly ones you'll want them to hear.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Bob Mondello
    An American Affair
    Hard to say what's dumber, the premise or the characters in William Olsson's trashily preposterous An American Affair.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Mondello
    Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
    Unlike say, "Monsters Vs. Aliens," which would have been nothing at all without its special-effects spectacle, this is a sweet little comedy, both family-friendly and centered on a nontraditional family, and so suitable for pretty much everyone.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Bob Mondello
    Amelia
    The result is verisimilitude without engagement -- a risk-taker's story told entirely without narrative risk -- and a movie that consequently never takes flight.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Bob Mondello
    Elsa y Fred
    By movie's end, director Marcos Carnevale has made it possible for you to see Elsa through Fred's eyes. Love has bloomed late -- but with sweet exuberance -- in this romantic charmer.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Bob Mondello
    Star Trek
    It's hard to imagine anyone caring much why we're plunging ahead at warp speed, when the ride is so insanely satisfying.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Mondello
    Revolutionary Road
    Director Sam Mendes makes '50s suburbia a persuasively suffocating place — he did the same for '90s suburbia in "American Beauty," remember.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 65 Bob Mondello
    Moon
    The actor proves capable of embodying all sorts of contradictory impulses as his character becomes tragically self-aware. But he can't overcome a plot that goes slack at precisely the moment it should be soaring, or a corporate-villainy premise that practically begs not to be looked at too closely.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Bob Mondello
    American Teen
    The students all say and do more than they should in the filmmaker's presence, which certainly makes them watchable -- sort of a slow-motion train wreck.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 85 Bob Mondello
    The Secret of Kells
    There's something kind of captivating about a film that's been painstakingly drawn to glorify the craft of illustration, and that's comfortable using retro techniques. Because after all, what else makes sense for bringing to life the gold and scarlet ornamentation in ancient manuscripts?
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Bob Mondello
    The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
    The faux-naive point of view probably worked better in the novel; the literalness of film renders certain of the story's conceits overly precious.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Bob Mondello
    The Great Buck Howard
    Laughs? Schmaltz? Life lessons? They're all there in Sean McGinly's pleasantly lackadaisical script, but not in such abundance that they seem reason enough to see the film.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Bob Mondello
    Four Christmases
    Alas, there's scarcely a moment of ingenuity or surprise in this tale of the supremely smug, unmarried-but-made-for-each-other Brad and Kate.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Mondello
    South of the Border
    Engaging enough as polemics go, but unlikely to change many minds.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Bob Mondello
    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    Lisbeth, pierced, tattooed and played by Rapace with a sometimes uncontrolled ferocity, qualifies as both a victim of male violence and a violent avenger of it. This makes her a lot more compelling than her comparatively passive partner -- something that Hollywood will doubtless find it necessary to "remedy" when Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is remade in English.
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