New Unbroken Movie Received Mixed Reviews From Major Critics
Universal Pictures released their new Angelina Jolie directed drama film, “Unbroken,” into theaters yesterday,December 25th, and all the major, top movie critics in the biz, have served up their reviews. And things turned out mixed, getting an overall 59 score out a possible 100 across 42 reviews at the Metacritic.com site.
It stars: Garrett Hedlund, Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Finn Wittrock and Miyavi. We’ve provided blurbs from a couple of the critics,below.
Joe Neumaier from the New York Daily News, gave it an excellent 100 score, saying: “When you get through it, though, you can’t help but feel uplifted by this tough-skinned movie that can stand with the best muscular wartime dramas in the American movie canon.”
Peter Travers over at Rolling Stone, gave it an 88 score, stating: “Jolie has an army of craftsmen in her corner, notably camera poet Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men). But it’s her vision that gives Unbroken a spirit that soars. In honoring Louis’ endurance, she does herself proud.”
Michael O’Sullivan at the Washington Post, gave it a 75 score. He stated: ” Unbroken may not exactly be mired in sanctimony, but it’s standing, almost up to its ankles, in an unhealthy sense that its subject — about whose simple humanity the film otherwise goes to great lengths to illuminate — is a candidate for sainthood.”
Todd McCarthy over at The Hollywood Reporter, gave it a 70 grade, saying: ” A great true story is telescoped down to a merely good one in Unbroken. After a dynamite first half-hour, Angelina Jolie’s accomplished second outing as a director slowly looses steam.”
Chris Nashawaty from Entertainment Weekly, gave it a 67 grade, saying: “It’s moving, admirable, and occasionally exhilarating. What it’s missing is the one thing that could always be counted on with Jolie as a star: the spark of danger.”
Brian Tallerico over at RogerEbert.com, gave it a 63 score. He said: ” It’s one of those inspirational Hollywood dramas about which there isn’t anything “overtly wrong” with it. It’s well-cast, it looks great, it has that intense centerpiece in the raft, and it certainly conveys a true story worth telling. And yet I keep coming back to that beautiful sunrise that opens the film. It’s just too damn pretty.”
Ty Burr from the Boston Globe, gave it a 63 score, saying: “Unbroken stirs a moviegoer by default; it’s an astounding story of human endurance that has been brought a little too safely to the screen.”
Claudia Puig at USA Today, gave it a 63 score, stating: “As directed by Angelina Jolie, it is occasionally powerful, with soaring visuals. It also is, however, stately and slow to the point of tedium.”
Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times, gave it a 63 score, stating: “Unbroken is an ambitious, sometimes moving film that suffers from a little too much self-conscious nobility, and far too many scenes of sadistic brutality.”
Michael Phillips from the Chicago Tribune, gave it a 63 score, saying: “Rightly, Jolie didn’t want to tell the man’s entire life story. But as is, at too-convenient dramatic junctures, the screenplay darts back into flashbacks of Zamperini’s childhood or young adulthood, when we should really be sticking with the crisis at hand.”
Manohla Dargis over at The New York Times, gave it a 60 grade, claiming: “What the movie ends up in desperate need of is a sense of life made real and palpable through dreadful, transporting details, not a life embalmed in hagiographic awe.”
Kenneth Turan at the Los Angeles Times, gave it a 60 score. He stated: “With what we see on screen weighted too much toward pain and too little toward redemption, this is a film we respect more than love, and that is something of a wasted opportunity.”
Joe Morgenstern from the Wall Street Journal, gave it a 50 grade, saying: “The title isn’t “Broken,” so there’s not much doubt of the outcome. But it’s certainly regrettable, because this long and increasingly sluggish film version of the Laura Hillenbrand book celebrates an American life of singular heroism.”
Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle, gave it a 50 grade, stating: “One of these days, Angelina Jolie might very well direct a great movie. She has a rare talent and intense concerns and interests. But first she is going to have to suppress some self-defeating impulses that have now twice taken potentially effective films and rendered them ridiculous.”
Kyle Smith at the New York Post, gave it a 50 score, saying: “Unbroken, is a cinematic scrapbook, a collection of well-composed scenes practically cut and pasted from “Memphis Belle,” “Chariots of Fire,” “Life of Pi” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” Unlike those other films, though, Angelina Jolie’s second effort as a director is more a series of similar events than a story, and lacks an underlying message except that torture hurts.”
Finally, Justin Chang from Variety, gave it a 50 grade, saying: “A bit embalmed in its own nobility, it’s an extraordinary story told in dutiful, unexceptional terms, the passionate commitment of all involved rarely achieving gut-level impact.” Stay tuned. Also, get your favorite Movie stuff, and more by Clicking Here.
