Damon Wise

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Empire, The Guardian
For 108 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 32% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Damon Wise's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 Changeling
Lowest review score: 20 The Benchwarmers
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 68 out of 108
  2. Mixed: 39 out of 108
  3. Negative: 1 out of 108
108 movie reviews
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    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Dragged Across Concrete
    Zahler has a way with action, and the set pieces are inventive and nasty, with an unflinching eye for violence. Such style and confidence is impressive. But after three movies, his increasingly morose characters’ world-weariness is becoming wearying in itself; a little more light and shade here and there would easily take this cult director to the next level. That is, if he wants to go.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    A Bigger Splash
    Ralph Fiennes dazzles as a rock’n’roll maverick in a stylish, unorthodox erotic drama that tries hard but fails to maintain its eccentric momentum.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Love
    The acting is wooden, but fans of the director’s more shocking work might enjoy its gentle self-referential comedy.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Southpaw
    Don’t get too caught up in the all-too-familiar plot, just savour Jake Gyllenhaal’s powerhouse performance in a riches-to-rags-to-redemption sports movie that punches well above its weight.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    The Judge
    A great cast and promising premise get swamped in an awkward mix of airport-novel noir and blokey family melodrama.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Charlie Countryman
    A caper thriller that's sufficiently zippy to hold the attention. LaBeouf's current notoriety adds extra piquancy to those urban fight scenes.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    Weekender
    A bang-on soundtrack will make the hairs on ex-ravers' necks stand up. The plot will have the opposite effect.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    The Reluctant Fundamentalist
    Ahmed excels and the set-up is compelling but ultimately this is middle rank stuff from the Monsoon Wedding director.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Lovelace
    Though Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's handsomely mounted period piece evokes the era with impressive detail, Lovelace's journey remains difficult to tell.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    On the Road
    A decent, well-cast and mounted adaptation that hits all the right notes but plays them in a respectful, muted monotone.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Silver Linings Playbook
    Jennifer Lawrence is the standout in a tonally uneven, eccentric romantic dramedy that fuses "The Fisher King" with "Romy And Michele's High School Reunion."
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Killing Them Softly
    A good, efficient crime thriller, let down by clunky social commentary but lifted by excellent performances, including perhaps Brad Pitt's recent best.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    The Awakening
    Solid production values lend a polish to the spooks and there are strong performances all round, especially from the ever-excellent Rebecca Hall, but there's little here to add to the well-worn haunted house genre.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    The Dictator
    Formulaic, yet scrappy, and extremely funny in fits and starts, General Aladeen is the first of Cohen comic creations to get a better vehicle than it probably deserves.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Intruders
    Though short on shocks and mild in horror terms, Fresnadillo's fantasy has a lot of heart and sincerity in equal measure.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    W.E.
    An uneven study of a notorious love story, raised by some superb performances and nuances, but brought down by awkward direction.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Retreat
    Excellent performances from the cast elevate this otherwise slightly flawed a hokey interloper story.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    Restless
    Compared to its direct inspiration - Hal Ashby's blackly brilliant "Harold And Maude" - Restless comes off like an anemic facsimile. After the excellent "Milk," this is more like curdled cheese.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    The Rite
    Just don't walk in expecting to become a believer by the end.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    The Singing Detective
    Where Gambon made the perfect misanthrope, Downey doesn't quite fit the role. Astonishingly, despite his drug-related crimes and misdemeanours, he actually seems too innocent to be so crabby and vile.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    It's a Wonderful Afterlife
    With jokes that routinely miss the mark and cringeworthy slapstick, this black comedy farce shouldn't work. Somehow, though, it does.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    I'm Still Here
    Affleck's meta-satire riffs amusingly on celebrity culture without hitting too many faux-doc highs.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Bolt
    The unlikely superhero of this film is the hamster, who brings the funny amid a flurry of weaker gags. But Bolt still has charm -- it just won't hit with the adults the way the best animated films can.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    Zombie Strippers!
    A brilliantly high-concept title and some decent gore aside, you're better off watching the version in your head. It will be infinitely more fun and have markedly improved production values.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Southland Tales
    A bold and sometimes garbled take on modern American politics, this nevertheless marks an effective and surprisingly funny comeback for a film that many deemed to be DOA.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Capitalism: A Love Story
    A barbed study of the American economy puts capitalism in the dock but somehow fails to convict.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    Man in the Chair
    As in Cocoon, the emphasis is on sentiment, feel-good and reclaiming the elderly from the scrapheap. But the performances are nowhere near as subtle.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    Tell Me Something
    Director Yang Joon-hyun works scrupulously from the Hollywood serial murder playbook, and delivers something which does its job, even as its last reel flounders with several too many plot twists, but has no particular reason to exist.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Fast Food Nation
    A gross and engrossing attempt to humanise a hot-button subject, using a star-sprinkled cast to reveal some unpalatable truths.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Mister Foe
    An intriguing rites-of-passage story with a delirious, skewed perspective and an almost palpable sexual pulse.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Spun
    Yes, it’s offensive, stupid and loud, but its cartoonish, macabre wit should be evident to anyone with a brain in the first ten minutes. Whether it’s funny or not, though, is another matter entirely. Approach with extreme caution -- and/or rubber gloves.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Mysterious Skin
    Corbet emerges as an actor of sensitivity and depth, but it’s Gordon-Levitt who steals every scene as the damaged, destructive but ultimately sympathetic rent boy.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    Hideaway (Le refuge)
    Lyrical in style and presentation, this drama alludes to serious issues but does not address them. Enjoyable stylistically, but not substantiated beyond glossy advertisement.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
    John C Reilly just about holds together a funny but patchy comedy that puts a ten-megaton bomb under the cliched rock biopic – and never detonates it.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Bruno
    A patchy, hit-and-miss comedy with a few outrageous highs and a lot of just-okay padding, Brüno suggests that Sacha Baron Cohen's in-your-face fool routine sadly isn't working any more.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    The Ordeal
    A black comedy with flashes of genius, but let down by a sharp slide into chaos.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Black Snake Moan
    Sam Jackson delivers the electric blues in a not-so-blue movie that promises more Deep South sin than it actually delivers.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Damon Wise
    The U.S. vs. John Lennon
    Perhaps not an entirely a faithful portrayal of the era or the great man, but interesting in parts.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Damon Wise
    Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
    A frustratingly soft documentary that would sooner teach the world to sing than get to the bottom of the Bin Laden enigma.

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