The Lens - Rotten Tomatoes

The Lens

The Lens is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Andrew Wyatt
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
A
Roma (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

In Roma, Cuarón has crafted not just a great feat of cinema, but a work that's destined to be savored and pored over for decades to come.
Posted Dec 19, 2018
2
A-
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The deliriously fun, dimension-tripping Spider-Verse isn't just the best Spidey feature ever. It's one of the best superhero-comic films, full stop.
Posted Dec 12, 2018
3
C+
Boarding School (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Boarding School often feels as if it's trying to cram too many concepts into a narrative container that is too conventional and constrictive to accommodate them all.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
4
B
What Keeps You Alive (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

A dark, gut-wrenching pleasure, anchored by Anderson's utterly chilling performance.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
5
D-
Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The whole thing is moronic and unpleasant as heck, redeemed only marginally by the anything-goes transgressive hokeyness of the homicidal set-pieces.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
6
C-
Down a Dark Hall (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Dispiritingly bland gothic nonsense, more concerned with gloomy atmosphere and trite adolescent angst than with creating a compelling story.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
7
C
Summer of '84 (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The directors exploited a similar retro vibe in the giddy, gonzo Turbo Kid, but here it feels somewhat superfluous, tacked onto a standard serial-killer-next-door thriller.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
8
B-
Elizabeth Harvest (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The limpid shocks and needless structural convolutions might be unmemorable, but the striking visuals and juxtapositions linger.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
9
C-
Ruin Me (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Ruin Me is deficient in all the usual ways that mark a low-budget indie horror feature, but for all its flaws, the film still has one undeniably gratifying hook.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
10
B
The Night Eats the World (La nuit a dévoré le monde) (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Injects some vitality into the stale zombocalypse subgenre not by discarding the form's constraints, but by making compelling structural and storytelling choices.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
11
D+
The Devil's Doorway (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

One could quickly fill in a bingo card of post-Exorcist tropes as Clarke's feature goes through the fright-free motions of dribbling out allegedly sinister revelations.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
12
C+
The Night of the Virgin (La noche del virgen) (2016)

Andrew Wyatt

Sebastián gets impressive, squirm-inducing mileage out of modest resources, but his film is overly reliant on charm-free vulgarity and protracted histrionics.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
13
C
They Remain (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

They Remain has atmosphere in spades; unfortunately, there's remarkably little plot to go along with all the mood.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
14
D
Feral (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The only truly scary thing about this film is that it runs out of narrative steam with 30 or 40 interminable minutes still to go.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
15
D+
Sequence Break (2017)

Andrew Wyatt

The performances are clunky as heck, and a late-game story swerve feels like a failed, Hail Mary attempt to save the film from its own shapeless, repetitive, and nonsensical plot.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
16
B-
Cargo (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Cargo is a cruel, wrenching piece of work, if frustratingly beholden to the subgenre's tropes; the film's novel touches lend it just enough flavor for it to linger.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
17
C+
The Noonday Witch (2016)

Andrew Wyatt

A domestic sort-of-ghost story, so determinedly slow-burning that it almost forgets that it's supposed to be frightening.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
18
D
Family Blood (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Vampire films are almost always chock-a-block with tropes, but this one doesn't have even a drop of originality.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
19
C-
The Cleanse (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Ultimately lifeless and uninvolving, distinguished only by its faintly gnarly premise and its ugly-cute creature designs.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
20
C+
Downrange (2017)

Andrew Wyatt

The characters are indistinct and the performances lousy, but such deficiencies are less vexing when the blood, brains, and bullets are flying with such abandon.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
21
C-
Wildling (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The actors do their best, but Wildling is a bland muddle: fatally uncertain as to what tone it wants to convey, and prone to haphazardly picking up and discarding subplots and themes.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
22
C+
Marrowbone (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

While some of its aesthetic and narrative components are vivid, Marrowbone as a whole feels simultaneously overstuffed and derivative.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
23
C+
Mon Mon Mon Monsters (2017)

Andrew Wyatt

Aficionados of Asian horror at its most comically excessive will enjoy it as a gonzo pleasure, but it's too clumsy and unpleasant to be any kind of cult classic in the making.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
24
D-
Demon House (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The expected slurry of chintzy re-creations, leading interview questions, and endless, tedious footage that doesn't reveal much of anything.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
25
C+
Cold Hell (Die Hölle) (2017)

Andrew Wyatt

Formally striking but too scattered and sluggish to function as a truly crackerjack serial-killer thriller.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
26
B-
Ravenous (Les affamés) (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

What truly makes The Ravenous stand out in the overstuffed zombie landscape is the film's formal artfulness.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
27
B-
Mohawk (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The low-budget seams are obvious, but the film is more of a modest success than a noble failure, thanks to the lean, evocative premise, which is smartly realized by Geohegan's direction.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
28
B-
Midnighters (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Midnighters doesn't do anything that hasn't been done before, but it executes its formulae with a kind of cold-blooded focus that's consistently impressive and often downright unnerving.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
29
C+
The Lodgers (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The redolent threatens to become monotonous as characters shuffle around in circles and O'Malley takes his sweet time portentously spelling out motives and plot points.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
30
D+
The Housemaid (Cô Hâu Gái) (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

An aimless exercise in dismal, scattershot PG-13 theatrics, the film builds clunkily towards a climactic reveal that is much more likely to elicit an indifferent grunt than a gasp.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
31
C
Dead Shack (2017)

Andrew Wyatt

Despite its many problems, a distinctly Canadian sensibility of dopey, gross-out fun manages to rise to the surface of this teens vs. zombies curio.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
32
B
The Ritual (2017)

Andrew Wyatt

The Ritual adeptly establishes an oppressively doom-rich atmosphere, and then proceeds to pitilessly slash into the viewer's subconscious with some genuinely chilling, uncanny horror imagery
Posted Dec 7, 2018
33
D
The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Paradox feels like a random assortment of indifferently mounted space-thriller and body-horror sequences that have been pulverized into an unintelligible narrative slurry.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
34
F
The Open House (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Utterly insufferable and almost maliciously pointless.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
35
B
Mom and Dad (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The specificity of the film's perverse conceit allows writer-director Brian Taylor to maintain a giddily satirical atmosphere throughout the blood-spattered proceedings,.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
36
D
Inside (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

This remake's bloody excesses can't conceal the fact that the film trades the 2007 original's aura of frantic peril for mere chintzy tedium.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
37
D
Devil's Gate (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Devil's Gate plays something like a kludgy, aimless episode of The X-Files, one with too many half-baked ideas and the running time to indulge them all.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
38
C+
Before I Wake (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

More of a blend of fantasy, sci-fi, and domestic drama than straight horror, Flanagan's film is clunkier and cheaper-looking than his other works, and the adult performances are markedly slack.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
39
A-
Phantom Thread (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Phantom Thread remains a grounded yet exultant romance to its end, even when its love story snakes off in some disquieting and utterly unexpected directions.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
40
C+
The Final Year (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Hardcore political junkies are the only ones likely to find it outright enthralling, and Barker does nothing to make the fly-on-the-wall raw material particularly invigorating.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
41
B-
Hostiles (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The film's mood is overwhelmingly bitter, despairing, and exhausted, reflecting the characters' preoccupation with the world's capricious cruelty and their own incalculable contributions to it.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
42
B-
Annihilation (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Annihilation is a darn fine work of science-fiction cinema, one that steadily improves as its plot gets increasingly weird, unhurried, and abstract.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
43
B-
Red Sparrow (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

An exceedingly novel slice of pop entertainment: a sordid spy story for those who relish the genre's escapist titillation, but find martial arts and explosions wearying.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
44
A-
Thoroughbreds (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Finley's feature doesn't want to be liked; it just wants the viewer's full attention. On that score, it's a wickedly engaging triumph.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
45
B-
The Death of Stalin (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Stalin serves up the cringe comedy of tyranny, where much of the humor lies in the way that the characters twist themselves into hopeless knots as they navigate a Soviet wonderland.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
46
B+
Isle of Dogs (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

The film's sense of real and lethal peril - its diorama-like unreality notwithstanding - is eminently fitting for a story that is so keenly attuned to the distinctive angst of the human-canine relationship.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
47
B+
A Quiet Place (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

It may not be bracingly original, but Krasinski's film executes its simple (one might say atavistic) formula with a wonderful intensity and focus.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
48
B-
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Marvel's 10-year plan to get viewers invested in its flawlessly cast roster of geniuses, weirdos, misfits, and monsters has actually worked, finally paying some real emotional dividends.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
49
B
Lu Over the Wall (Yoake tsugeru Rû no uta) (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Ultimately, it's Lu's sense of dizzy visual pluck that elevates the film above its sweet but straightforward fairy-tale foundation.
Posted Dec 7, 2018
50
B+
Revenge (2018)

Andrew Wyatt

Nothing about Fargeat's approach to this tale is the least bit nuanced or subdued, because said tale practically demands a primal scream.
Posted Dec 7, 2018