It’s been gone for a while, but it’s back. I’ve been trying to think of a way that I can return some link love for all those critics/blogs that I love to read. Since I love reading reviews of films that I’ve seen what I’ll do is each week whatever new release that I review here I will post what I think the General Consensus of the movie is by posting short snippets of many reviews here. Check it out below:
So here’s how this is going to work. Since I want to create an average score for the film (like my own blogosphere only version of RT or IMDB) I will only count reviews that have a rating. If your rating is letter graded then I will convert it using High School style grades (i.e. A = 9/10, B = 8/10, C = 7/10, D = 5/10, F = 3/10). I’ll definitely mention other, non-scaled reviews, but they won’t be calculated into the overall General Consensus.
No Strings Attached
Directed By: Ivan Reitman
Written by: Elizabeth Meriwether & Michael Samonek
Starring: Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Greta Gerwig, Ludacris & Jake M. Johnson
This movie doesn’t break new ground on the “sex leads to feelings and possibly a relationship” cliche, but that doesn’t mean it’s not great fun to watch. – Jess from Insight Into Entertainment. Grade: 8.0/10
Romantic comedies are what I used to think were the easiest going film genres of all time. You get two charming, quirky, funny leads and ask them to smile as each of them are cute and sweet to each other. I go in, I chuckle, smirk and smile at these two people falling in love. However, somewhere along the way it became a little too common place and the jokes just stopped being funny, the grand gesture stopped being effective and that first moment stopped being cute. – Andrew from Gman Reviews. Grade: 3.5/10
Sure, the characters have new names and new jobs and all that good stuff, but they’re essentially going through all the same ups and downs that everyone else has gone through before them. – Aiden R. from Cut The Crap Movie Reviews. Grade: 3.0/10
Between the bad direction, worse script, and lazy performances, No Strings Attached is a triple threat. – Colin from FilmJunk. Grade: 5.0/10
No Strings Attached wants to have its cake and eat kitty too, but the line between fun romance and raunch is a tough one to walk. The most recent film to get it right was Going the Distance, but for an example of one that people actually saw you’d have to go back to 1998′s There’s Something About Mary. Both of those feature big laughs combined with a romance that you want to see succeed, but this latest film features neither. – Rob Hunter from Film School Rejects. Grade: C- (6.5/10)
The film’s greatest success is in screenwriter Elizabeth Meriwether managing to tell a story everyone in the theater knows how it’s going to turn out and doing it with a modicum of reality. – Brad Brevet from Rope of Silicon. Grade: C (7.0/10)
When critics dismiss the romantic-comedy genre, they’re talking about films like No Strings Attached. Not every film needs to challenge its viewer, but No Strings Attached barely bothers to show up. It coasts on its telegenic lead actors, but never takes advantage of their comic timing or bothers to see if they play well off each other. – Matt Goldberg from Collider. Grade: D (5.0/10)
This is a strange film. Its premise is so much more transgressive than its execution. It’s as if the 1970s never happened, let alone subsequent decades. Emma and Adam aren’t modern characters. They’re sitcom characters allowed to go all the way like grown-ups. – Roger Ebert. Grade: 5.0/10
Reitman is slavishly faithful to the romcom handbook, a blueprint which reasons, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Or, even if it is broke, don’t bother improving it! – from Obsessed With Film. Grade: 4.0/10
It’s not lazy so much as it is safe. The film jumps through familiar hoops just at the moment it shouldn’t. Still, No String Attached is enough to slow the rapid death of a once-revered type of film and keep alive the hope that Mr. Reitman the senior has at least one more great comedy left in him. At least for now. – Dan Mecca from The Film Stage. Grade: C+ (7.5/10)
Avg. Score: 5.5/10