Rick Groen

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The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
For 1,531 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 55% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Rick Groen's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Kafka
Lowest review score: 0 The Amityville Horror
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 851 out of 1531
  2. Mixed: 449 out of 1531
  3. Negative: 231 out of 1531
1531 movie reviews
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    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Winnie Mandela
    Winnie begins as hagiography and ends in hellish confusion.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    The Heat
    If this were funny, The Heat would add up to your average buddy-cop comedy. Except that it’s not funny, at least not very and not often.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    The Purge
    So, fans, gear up for rock-em-sock-em action, yet don’t be disappointed if much of the goonery seems a bit tepid and, dare I say, staged.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Kon-Tiki
    In a kind of perverse alchemy, this film manages to turn that narrative gold into dross, and reduce the daunting perils of a 4,300-mile voyage to a ho-hum checklist. Welcome to the reverse magic of the movies.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    The Big Wedding
    It’s just such a shining example of a dull studio comedy.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
    For my first trick, allow me to write off an entire picture by merely affixing to the title a one-word contraction: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone isn’t. Please hold your applause.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Stoker
    Park is busy treating every frame like a runway model, dressing it up in self-conscious layers of cinematic haute couture. It’s gorgeous to gaze upon but otherwise dessicated – listless, juiceless and ultimately pointless. For all his exemplary camera work, there’s no motion, or emotion, in the picture.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    21 and Over
    Certainty, then, is the watchword, and you can be certain of three things: There will be plenty of juvenile energy to power the vehicle; there will be a few mild chuckles en route; there will be no reason to remember the ride the instant it ends.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Inescapable
    To her credit, Nadda is a solid actors’ director – the performances here are competent even when the writing isn’t. The exception is South Africa which, although a logistically necessary shooting location, ain’t much of a thespian.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    On the Road
    Director Walter Salles, who knows a thing or two about picaresque journeys – in "The MotorcycleDiaries," even in "Central Station" – does make an honest effort here.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Gangster Squad
    The irony is worth noting: Back when it was really 1949, Hollywood made noir with teeth; this is nougat with pretensions.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Citadel
    No longer content with simple conservatism, this horror is downright totalitarian.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    The Paperboy
    The Paperboy is southern Gothic wallowing in the swamp of low camp. And if the wallowing were deliberate, this might have been hugely funny.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Taken 2
    Just a mediocre action franchise with a solid actor at the head and a travelogue in its heart.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    House at the End of the Street
    I doubt that Lawrence is conscious of this process. Nevertheless, stuck in a dull commercial feature, a very good actor happens upon a new solution to an age-old problem: She improves the script by transcending it, and steals the picture by abandoning it.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Premium Rush
    On the byways of any bustling metropolis, here is what the combination of bicycles + cars + pedestrians is certain to produce: (1) nasty accidents and (2) ferocious debates. More surprisingly, on the silver screen in Premium Rush, here is what the same combination fails to produce: a good action movie.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Little White Lies
    In what's meant to be a French take on "The Big Chill" - comedy meets pathos as friends gather at a country house in the wake of a tragedy - writer-director Guillaume Canet has wrought a meandering script that exercises everything except restraint.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    The Expendables 2
    Of course, the result is forgettable, but at least it's efficiently and breezily forgettable. What's more, there are laughs too and here's the best part – one or two of them are actually intentional.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    360
    To their credit, both Meirelles and his cast infuse as much realism into the artifice as they can muster, but it's not nearly enough. The too-neat script boxes them in, and leave us out. In that sense, 360 doesn't so much connect our shrunken world as strangle the life from it – the circle feels like a noose.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Virginia
    It's all rather wacky and hard to follow or fathom, although maybe that's attributable to Virginia's schizophrenia veering off on its delusional phase.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    The Samaritan
    About a third of the way along, there's a shocking revelation that definitely packs a punch. Problem is, it's followed by a near-immediate return to familiar narrative convention, where the noir ante rises exponentially toward a climax that arrives too hastily and ends too neatly.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    The Avengers
    Expected too is the result: a kind of sterile opulence or, if you prefer, a magnificent emptiness.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Safe
    Love the kid though, and Statham too – it takes a star with quality to be so rock solid in a crumbling yarn.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Lockout
    Pearce pumps a surprising amount of levity into his one-liners – sure, it's still hot air, but at least the banter comes fully inflated.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Casa de mi Padre
    Really, Casa de mi Padre is a skit blown up to a feature flick, amusing for a while until its welcome wears out.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    John Carter
    Epically fantastic would be a welcome change, although epically awful would at least keep the symmetry. Alas, epically bland will have to do.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Norwegian Wood
    This is the one Murakami work that would seem an ideal candidate for the leap from page to screen. It should be a good movie. But it isn't.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Project X
    Judged by the usual aesthetic standards – Project X sucks. It's just another lame movie. Yet apply a different standard, the mores of our time, and you get a different verdict: Suddenly, it's a perfectly lame movie that speaks intriguingly to the way we live now.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Act of Valor
    A recruitment poster loosely disguised as a movie.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Rick Groen
    Chronicle
    It's odd, how these high-concept films, knowing that the central gimmick has a way of wearing out its welcome, are all so short – a mere 84 minutes in this case. Why odd? Because short always ends up feeling so damn long. This is no exception. Quick to start and painfully slow to finish, Chronicle is the same old chronicle.
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