David Rooney

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The Hollywood Reporter, Variety
For 1,375 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.7 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

David Rooney's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Lost in Translation
Lowest review score: 10 Boat Trip
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 848 out of 1375
  2. Mixed: 441 out of 1375
  3. Negative: 86 out of 1375
1375 movie reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 David Rooney
    28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
    If audiences can accept a sequel that has veered into something closer to folk horror than its zombie-adjacent roots, they should be able to plug into its peculiar wavelength.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 David Rooney
    Primate
    As a creature feature, Primate gets the job done and has its share of asinine wit.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 David Rooney
    The Housemaid
    A lobotomy might be useful to buy all the shock twists and turns of this preposterous story and director Paul Feig too often holds back rather than fully leaning into its campy sensationalism and arch comedy. But holiday counterprogramming doesn’t get much juicier.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 David Rooney
    Avatar: Fire and Ash
    Yes, the movie offers gargantuan-scale spectacle, imposing technological wizardry and virtually nonstop action involving over-qualified and mostly unrecognizable actors in motion-capture suits. But it’s easily the most repetitious entry in the big-screen series, with a been-there, bought-the-T-shirt fatigue that’s hard to ignore.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 David Rooney
    Ella McCay
    Anyone nostalgic for the director’s more memorable work might get a kick out of seeing him reunite with past collaborators Kavner and Albert Brooks. But almost everyone here is trying way too hard, with the exception of Mackey, who’s appealing and natural even when stuck in a phony world full of phony characters.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 David Rooney
    Marty Supreme
    There’s swaggering confidence in the filmmaking to match that of the title character, along with adrenalized visuals, fine-grained production design and scrupulous attention to casting, down to the background players.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 David Rooney
    Wicked: For Good
    Sure, all but one of the show’s most memorable songs are in the first act, but the investment in character, story and sumptuous design more than compensates in Wicked: For Good, which again shows that casting stellar vocal talents Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande was a masterstroke.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 David Rooney
    The Running Man
    Wright seems almost constrained by a film that ends up neither as compelling nor as deep nor as wildly entertaining as it seems to believe.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 David Rooney
    The Love That Remains
    There’s much to admire in Pálmason’s unconventional approach to what could have been familiar domestic drama. But the dreamlike detours threaten to overwhelm the tender portrait of a family breakup.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    Song Sung Blue
    This is the kind of robust entertainment — wholesome though not at all toothless, alternately joyful and heart-wrenching — that doesn’t get made much anymore. . . It’s a family movie in the best sense of the term, a crowd-pleaser with a ton of heart.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 David Rooney
    The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
    By the time questions are answered, not just regarding Polly but also the way in which her history intersects with Caitlin’s, the glacial pacing and lack of suspense have dulled the thriller’s hook.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 David Rooney
    Köln 75
    Fluk doesn’t have a firm enough handle on the material to make that story interesting. And the uneven division of the Keith and Vera plotlines makes Köln 75 a movie without a narrative center.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    Calle Málaga
    The movie is a sweet star showcase that belongs unequivocally to the incandescent Maura, whose earthy naturalness, sly humor and tenacious spirit feed a direct link back to her Almodóvarian glory days.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    Is This Thing On?
    It’s an unassuming comic drama that sneaks up on you, its emotional honesty fueled by gorgeous performances of unimpeachable naturalness from Will Arnett and Laura Dern.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 David Rooney
    The Woman in Cabin 10
    Australian theater and film director Simon Stone’s blandly glossy, capably acted adaptation, co-written with Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, is mostly a pedestrian affair that waits until the denouement to crank up the suspense and show some teeth.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 David Rooney
    TRON: Ares
    It’s no sci-fi insta-classic, but there are worse things to be than a surprisingly entertaining post-summer popcorn bucket.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 David Rooney
    Play Dirty
    As in most of his roles since The Departed and The Fighter, Wahlberg shows little charisma, particularly when he’s flanked by an actor with the irreverent verve of LaKeith Stanfield, who steals every scene without even breaking a sweat. That’s not to say Wahlberg is the movie’s sole shortcoming. Not by a long shot.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 David Rooney
    Anemone
    Regardless of the film’s shortcomings, it’s a thrill to have this giant of an actor back on a movie screen, hopefully next time with a more satisfyingly fleshed-out screenplay.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    Steve
    Moments of humor and rare quiet are essential to relieve the manic chaos that more often reigns in this unflinching but compassionate slice of social realism.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    The Christophers
    Few are going to rate The Christophers as top-tier Soderbergh, but it bats about ideas pertaining to art, commerce, ownership and legacy with dexterous aplomb and boasts two equally superb leads who make the material crackle.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    Roofman
    This is the kind of disarming crowd-pleaser for which cringe-inducing clichés like “it will sneak up and steal your heart” were invented. What’s refreshing about Roofman is that it’s never too aggressive about it. It’s sentimental but sincere.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 David Rooney
    Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
    This puzzler with neo-Gothic trappings, while it gets off to a promising, very funny start, becomes too clever and convoluted for its own good. That becomes apparent almost as soon as the investigation gets underway and the movie starts losing its fizz.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    Dead Man's Wire
    Dead Man’s Wire is a timely, entertaining reflection on the way the offer of the American Dream often tends to be snatched back.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 David Rooney
    A House of Dynamite
    Eight years since her last feature, Kathryn Bigelow returns with an unrelenting chokehold thriller so controlled, kinetic and unsettlingly immersive that you stagger out at the end of it wondering if the world will still be intact.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 David Rooney
    The Testament of Ann Lee
    Seyfried builds a powerful force around Ann’s convictions, but there’s too little intimate knowledge of this historically significant woman to convey much beyond her zeal.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 David Rooney
    Father Mother Sister Brother
    For a three-part piece, it gains a gorgeous fluidity from the gossamer ribbon of melancholy threaded through it. Like Paterson, it’s a film whose simplicity, sweetness and unvarnished ordinariness make it seem almost a miracle.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    No Other Choice
    The movie remains the work of a master craftsman with his own idiosyncratic storytelling signature, though the pathos and suspense of a hardworking family man driven by desperation to murder get short-changed in favor of wacky humor.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 David Rooney
    Frankenstein
    One of del Toro’s finest, this is epic-scale storytelling of uncommon beauty, feeling and artistry.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 David Rooney
    Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
    Movies about depression are tough, but fans invested in the subject during a transitional moment of artistic and personal catharsis will be rewarded.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 David Rooney
    After the Hunt
    As riveting as she is, Roberts ultimately is ill-served by a film so studiously cryptic that it ends up just frustrating. To be fair, there are several electric confrontations, distributed evenly enough to ensure that After the Hunt remains absorbing. But even so, this is a date movie to be used in relationship sabotage maneuvers.
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