Derek Elley

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Variety
For 400 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 45% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 52% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Derek Elley's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 Atonement
Lowest review score: 10 Thomas and the Magic Railroad
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 199 out of 400
  2. Mixed: 178 out of 400
  3. Negative: 23 out of 400
400 movie reviews
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    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Derek Elley
    Spirited Away
    An out-and-out charmer. It's almost impossible to do justice in words either to the visual richness of the movie, which melanges traditional Japanese clothes and architecture with both Victorian and modern-day artifacts, or to the character-filled storyline, with human figures, harpies and grotesque creatures.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 60 Derek Elley
    The Hurt Locker
    Boal's script stirs a little of everything into the pot, which boils down into seven setpieces divided by brief intervals of camaraderie/conflict among the three protags.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Derek Elley
    Werckmeister Harmonies
    A stunning feature -- another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Derek Elley
    Pulse
    Result is always watchable, occasionally creepy and teasingly pitched halfway between a genre riff and a genuine scarefest.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Derek Elley
    Fakers
    Despite engaging performances from a cast led by Matthew Rhys and Kate Ashfield and pro direction by first-timer Richard Janes, yarn about art grifters lacks real snap, which ultimately stems from the so-so script and lack of real coin.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Derek Elley
    The Queen
    Tradition and informality collide -- and mutually benefit -- in the deliciously written and expertly played The Queen.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    The Lives of Others
    Superbly cast drama… that looks to be a solid upscale attraction wherever the special chemistry of good writing and performances is appreciated.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    House of Flying Daggers
    The tangled tale of love and disguise is awesome in its action sequences but doesn't touch the heart to the same degree.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    Nobody Knows
    Kore-eda sketches the inner, spiritual and emotional lives of the children with subtlety and sensitivity, delivering the goods after a seemingly directionless first half.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Derek Elley
    Under the Sand
    An exquisite reflection on personal bereavement.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    Summer Hours
    A family ensembler of utter simplicity, Oliver Assayas' Summer Hours is a salutory (and belated) reminder that, as with his earlier Cold Water and Late August, Early September, some of this writer-director's best work comes in modest packages.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    The Edge of Heaven
    Superbly cast drama, in which the lives and emotional arcs of six people -- four Turks and two Germans -- criss-cross through love and tragedy.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Derek Elley
    Lebanon
    Visceral, torn-from-the-memory filmmaking that packs every punch except one to the heart, Lebanon is the boldest and best of the recent mini-wave of Israeli pics ("Beaufort," "Waltz With Bashir") set during conflicts between the two countries.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
    A sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie reflecting one man's life journey.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Derek Elley
    The Buffalo Boy
    Sports a stronger narrative spine than is usual in Vietnamese rural dramas and a less fragile tone in its deployment of landscape and character.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    Hero
    A dazzlingly lensed, highly stylized meditation on heroism.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Derek Elley
    24 Hour Party People
    A rough, gritty, often scabrously humorous tribute.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Derek Elley
    Atonement
    Rarely has a book sprung so vividly to life, but also worked so enthrallingly in pure movie terms, as with Atonement, Brit helmer Joe Wright’s smart, dazzlingly upholstered adaptation of Ian McEwan’s celebrated 2001 novel.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    Naked
    Leigh’s gallery of haves and have-nots, of emotional anorexics and exploited deadbeats, carries a strong political charge that’s there for the taking. But the pic also plays simply as a black, offbeat comedy with a romantic undertow.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    The Host
    On almost every level, there's never quite been a monster movie like The Host. Egregiously subverting its own genre while still delivering shocks at a pure genre level, and marbled with straight-faced character humor that constantly throws the viewer off balance.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    The Long Day Closes
    Strength of Davies’ vision is the crux, and it holds the line to the final, confident fadeout.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Derek Elley
    A Christmas Tale
    Largely thanks to the snappy editing, short scenes and a strong cast led by a matronly Deveuve and Amalric's enjoyable perf as the black sheep of the family, A Christmas Tale never devolves into a tedious two-and-a-half hours of self-examination. But it also never goes very far, either.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    Children of Men
    Picture more than delivers on the action front -- not in bang-for-your-buck spectacle but in the kind of gritty, doculike sequences that haul viewers out of their seats and alongside the main protags.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Derek Elley
    Farewell My Concubine
    A seductively lensed but emotionally uninvolving drama about two male Peking Opera stars and the ex-prostie who comes between them, Chen Kaige's fourth feature, Farewell to My Concubine, reps a stylistic U-turn compared with his earlier abstract parables like Life on a String and Yellow Earth.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
    Neither pure masala musical nor pure masala meller, Lagaan is an involving, easily digestible hunk of pure entertainment that could be the trigger for Bollywood's long-awaited crossover to non-ethnic markets.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    The Snapper
    There’s plenty of unvarnished, off-the-wall Irish humor, especially in the ensemble scenes of family life and boozy barroom chat, plus real warmth beneath the rough one-liners.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Derek Elley
    Ladybird Ladybird
    Though the movie sounds irredeemably depressing on paper, there’s a real warmth to the central relationship that lifts “Ladybird” above similar-sounding exercises in Brit self-loathing.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Derek Elley
    Merci Pour Le Chocolat
    A treat, a delicious blend of perversity, playfulness and deadly passion concealed beneath the tranquil, moneyed surface of the Swiss bougeoisie.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
    Opening half-hour has some of the best stuff in the movie, walking a precarious line between black irony and showing the war from a totally German viewpoint, without tipping over into gallows humor or parody.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Derek Elley
    Memories of Murder
    A powerful, slow-burning portrait of human fallibility.
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