Brian Roan

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The Film Stage
For 27 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Brian Roan's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 91 1917
Lowest review score: 16 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 27
  3. Negative: 3 out of 27
27 movie reviews
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    • 61 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Roan
    Peter Pan & Wendy
    It’s not at all surprising that Peter Pan & Wendy, which Lowery co-wrote with Toby Halbrooks, feels effortless and joyful. The filmmaker clearly has an affinity for the material, and seeks to bring some of the depth of understanding that adulthood affords to the story. While the results are a little uneven narratively, the breathless action, stellar performances, and beautiful compositions carry the story to rousing heights.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Brian Roan
    Luca
    Luca is a film soaked in nostalgic affection for the Italian coast, awe for the empowerment of knowledge, and love of the power of family, whether born of blood or choice.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Brian Roan
    Oxygen
    Working off a tight, clever script from writer Christie LeBlanc, Aja has delivered a nail-biting, thought-provoking, fleet-footed film, the likes of which will shake even the most jaded and tired viewers out of any quarantine-induced stupor they may find themselves in.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Brian Roan
    1917
    Deciding to craft a film as though it were all done in a single take means that everything must balance perfectly lest the artificiality be underlined rather than smoothed over. It is a credit to every person who worked on this film, at every level of development and execution, that 1917 works as well as it does.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 83 Brian Roan
    Doctor Sleep
    Doctor Sleep offers a shockingly nuanced and human story of social longing, spiritual rehabilitation, and existential redemption.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Brian Roan
    Ready or Not
    The tone management in this film is remarkable, and the blur of the absurd and the real is such that both the horror, the drama, and the comedy is kept on a dizzying high wire.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 25 Brian Roan
    Dumbo
    The problem with Dumbo, beyond the aforementioned bloodletting its inspiration underwent in order to create the cold, dead narrative corpse that comprises the first act of this film, is the pacing.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 67 Brian Roan
    Us
    When the narrative value begins to collapse, all that’s left is the reptilian reaction to and appreciation of the set-piece moments. Luckily, in the case of Us, those moments pay off greatly. It’s just a shame that, given all this talent and ambition, it can’t all add up to more than the sum of its parts.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Roan
    Captain Marvel
    Captain Marvel seems to hold itself to no higher standard than the absolute minimum that people tend to expect from an entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Roan
    The Upside
    Hart and Cranston seem committed and work their magic to sometimes allow the movie to spring to life.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Roan
    Glass
    This movie treats comics not as a narrative format to be recycled and adapted, but as religious myths to be followed and fulfilled. It is a single, impassioned vision that is totally uncompromising and utterly its own, comprised of layers and ideas that, while messily delivered, deserve to be turned over and explored.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Roan
    Mute
    Mute is one of those strange oddities in which every single aspect of the plot feels purposefully cultivated for some grand thematic or existential purpose, yet none of it coheres into something that feels particularly meaningful or revelatory.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 58 Brian Roan
    Justice League
    In between battles the banter is light enough and the actors charming enough to make even the most leaden dialogue bounce a little.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Brian Roan
    My Happy Family
    With a remarkable fullness of understanding, it tells a deeply personal story while revealing essential human truths, all without ever feeling constructed or false.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Brian Roan
    A Cure for Wellness
    It is all of the harrowing horror of an asylum film with none of the deeper, more disconcerting subtext or mind-bending logic puzzles — a film not entirely devoid of merit, but nonetheless hobbled by poor storytelling.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Brian Roan
    The Vessel
    As powerfully felt and gorgeously realized as anything one may see on screen this year.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 42 Brian Roan
    Suicide Squad
    Muddled characters and uneven storytelling are the roots of the issues here, but the ways in which Ayer seems to try to cover up his film’s deficiencies grate most of all.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 83 Brian Roan
    The Shallows
    After a summer glutted with films pushing punishing, redundant set pieces on grand scales, we finally have a film that is patient, atmospheric, and that delights in delivering escalating thrills of a smaller but more valuable variety.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Brian Roan
    Finding Dory
    In terms of emotional complexity and character evolution, Finding Dory treads the same water as its predecessor with less success. It’s a fine technological update and not a particularly inspired storytelling upgrade.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 25 Brian Roan
    Now You See Me 2
    Now You See Me 2 is a vapid, heartless film that wastes the time of its cast and audience alike.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Roan
    Warcraft
    In spite of these deficiencies — the narrative wildness, the static characters, the impenetrable lore — Warcraft is still not entirely a failure, most of all because of its charming, almost admirable level of goofy conviction.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Brian Roan
    X-Men: Apocalypse
    While not a disaster, it would be fair to say it is somewhere between “disappointingly serviceable” and “embarrassingly pointless.”
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Roan
    Captain America: Civil War
    Thanks to strong performances, deft writing, and clear, snappy direction and editing, this newest volume of the Marvel Cinematic Universe manages to be at once a thoroughly entertaining standalone story while also serving and benefiting from stories that came before.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Roan
    Keanu
    Keanu is a lightweight film with heavyweight laughs, a completely satisfying comedy experience from start to finish.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 58 Brian Roan
    The Huntsman: Winter's War
    In spite of all of its myriad shortfalls, this film succeeds as well as it does because it does not shy away from this truth, and because it gives us a romances that feel so true between people we would like to see succeed.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Brian Roan
    The Jungle Book
    For pure spectacle alone this film is well worth the ticket price. Its visuals are so undeniably convincing and intricate that the sheer wonder of how they achieved any of this will be enough to distract — from the story’s missteps and even the film itself.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 16 Brian Roan
    Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
    It is a movie ostensibly about consequences that never lingers long enough on its own story to consider that the things happening in the narrative present ought to have consequences as well. Very little matters; very little makes sense.

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