Michael Atkinson

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Mr. Showbiz, Time Out, Village Voice
For 888 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 30% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 67% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 11.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Michael Atkinson's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 54
Highest review score: 100 Under the Sand
Lowest review score: 0 Crush
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 328 out of 888
  2. Mixed: 354 out of 888
  3. Negative: 206 out of 888
888 movie reviews
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    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Atkinson
    The Cult of the Suicide Bomber
    This is not the can't-we-get-along Arab-Persian world we see in most liberal nonfiction films, but a broader and helplessly apocalyptic view of an entire region crazed with anger, frustration, and bloodlust into objectifying death as a weapon, a cause for cosmic glory, and little else.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Atkinson
    War of the Worlds
    Although it's thoroughly retooled, H.G. Wells's scenario doesn't allow for many soft landings, and the extreme respect for havoc on view quite properly keeps the Spielbergian cutesies to a minimum.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 68 Michael Atkinson
    The War Zone
    A brooding, stunningly realistic portrait of familial self-destruction that raises far more questions than it can possibly answer.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Atkinson
    The Suburbans
    A fresh and beautifully timed, if slight, romantic comedy.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Atkinson
    The Limey
    It's such an accomplished, beguiling film in its details that you almost don't notice that the story is scattershot, arbitrary, and thin -- almost.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Atkinson
    Twin Falls Idaho
    It is only once the movie has exhausted its roster of "weird" notions and contrived images that it finds its emotional footing, leaving you with one half of a lovely, woebegone film.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Atkinson
    Alice et Martin
    Has storytelling rambles and lapses that no amount of electrifying jump-cuts and original image-making can compensate for.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Atkinson
    The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
    It's Besson's stunning visual fluency that takes center stage, and in the end, that's not quite enough.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Atkinson
    Boiler Room
    A classic Sundance résumé movie -- texturally interesting, bubbling with ideas, and as structurally predictable as a cardboard box.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 67 Metascore
    • 66 Michael Atkinson
    Fight Club
    Despite terrific comic acting...and an atomic first hour, Fight Club makes a few wrong turns and ends up lost itself.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 91 Metascore
    • 66 Michael Atkinson
    Beau Travail
    The characters are barely characters, the story barely a story, and the elliptical filmmaking style that so besots Denis' many fans could drive you to drink.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 38 Metascore
    • 65 Michael Atkinson
    Double Parked
    Has an unforgettable artery of hot-blooded talent coursing straight through it.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 67 Metascore
    • 65 Michael Atkinson
    Thirteen Days
    Assiduous, temperate, and a lot more honest about government and politicians than any other Hollywood film of the last few decades, Thirteen Days is nevertheless too little, too late.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 65 Michael Atkinson
    Sweet and Lowdown
    A vapor trail of a comedy, comfortable as an old chair (and deliciously photographed in shades of melon and banana by Chinese vet Zhao Fei), but ultimately quaint and unchallenging.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 64 Michael Atkinson
    O Brother, Where Art Thou?
    For all its originality, O Brother doesn't seem to have a point, or enough spark to distract us from the lack thereof.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 64 Michael Atkinson
    Rugrats in Paris: The Movie - Rugrats II
    The frequent song interludes will distract the kids (but send the adults into comas), and the anti-Disney satire rages as never before.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Atkinson
    Sleepy Hollow
    Burton's films are endearing and impassioned despite the fact that they generally fail to tell a whole story, create a single rounded character, or inspire even mild laughs or chills.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Atkinson
    Pollock
    The dilemma is simple: Living, making art, and then dying does not constitute much of a story.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Atkinson
    The Widow of Saint-Pierre
    Accomplished, middlebrow costume-drama entertainment. It's not so simple that it could be mistaken for the work of, say, Lasse Hallström, and yet it's not so sophisticated that audiences of "Chocolat" would be mystified.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Atkinson
    The Minus Man
    It's a drab, familiar story with no oomph (and less humor than you'd think), and it's inconsistent.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 62 Michael Atkinson
    Vénus beauté (institut)
    Mature and adroitly performed but ultimately underachieving.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 61 Michael Atkinson
    Felicia's Journey
    It's yet another serial killer movie, a plot element that by this point in time, far from being disturbing or fascinating, is just plain dull.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 44 Metascore
    • 61 Michael Atkinson
    Committed
    There's a sense of life to Committed that's unpredictable and sweet, but too much of it is cluttered with lazy shortcuts.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 70 Metascore
    • 61 Michael Atkinson
    Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski
    From the beginning of his career a fervent, epic documentarian, Herzog is a personal filmmaker as well, and My Best Fiend is certainly his most intimate and introspective film.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Atkinson
    Fastpitch
    Spear's portrait of unpaid, passionate fastpitchers could give filmmakers of all budgets a notion of how real Americans speak.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Atkinson
    Stolen
    Despite the soft-spoken Smith, a type-A British liaison self-named the Turbocharger, and the apparent involvement of the IRA, the doc prioritizes flash over facts, leaving you pining for the New Yorker exposé it could've been.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Atkinson
    Shrek 2
    Some of the buckshot hits its target: Shrek's second sidekick, assassin-turned-comrade Puss in Boots, is voiced by Antonio Banderas as an outrageously mock-dramatic Spaniard with most of the pig-pile screenplay's best toss-offs.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Atkinson
    A Tale of Two Sisters
    Either way, Kim's rather clumsily acted film remains monstrously effective ookiness, with crepuscular cinematography (by the Hollywood-destined Kim Byeong-il) that suggests a nightmare endured from inside a suffocating velvet pillowcase.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Atkinson
    Thirteen Ghosts
    This might be as perfect a new-millennium Halloween creepshow as we can expect.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 40 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Atkinson
    Beneath
    Beneath may be an earnest goof, but any intended irony is so spiked with rainy-day-matinee movie love that the result is an oddly guileless horror exercise, unscary but rather adorable.
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