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Alistair Ryder
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Gladiator II (2024) |
If this decades-in-the-making sequel feels better than the original, it’s because there are no prestige aspirations here––Scott follows the formula of the first to a tee, turning up the dial so each set piece is bigger and stupider than before. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Nov 11, 2024
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Paddington in Peru (2024) |
It’s clearly a disappointment compared to the two King-directed efforts, but is not without moments of comic inspiration, enjoyable supporting performances, and well-engineered adventure blockbuster set pieces. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Nov 04, 2024
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Heretic (2024) |
“‘Heretic’ is the thinking man’s dumb horror movie of the year.” - Vague Visages
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| Posted Oct 30, 2024
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Julie Keeps Quiet (2024) |
Julie is a fascinating character in this regard, but Van Dijl and co-screenwriter Ruth Becquart’s choice to make each of her decisions designed to be interpreted in one of three ways robs her of some richness. - AwardsWatch
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| Posted Oct 26, 2024
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Flow (2024) |
The way Flow reinterprets a famous religious fable feels like what a “cool” youth pastor would show the kid congregation at a Sunday School class to remind them of the eternal urgency of scripture. - AwardsWatch
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| Posted Oct 23, 2024
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Joy (2024) |
If the aim was to get people reinvested in the miracle of IVF without coming across as an overtly political lecture, then it succeeds – there’s just a richer version of this story, a couple of script revisions away, constantly hiding in plain sight. - AwardsWatch
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| Posted Oct 18, 2024
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Smile 2 (2024) |
If "Smile 2" feels just as good as the first in the moment, then it's entirely thanks to Scott, who helps anchor a story that could crack under the weight of its endless twist reveals. - Looper.com
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| Posted Oct 16, 2024
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Nightbitch (2024) |
At a time when The Substance has proven the mainstream is comfortable with a movie that unpacks the messiness of womanhood in such a visceral way, a film that tries to be more tasteful than its silly conceit requires could only ever be unsatisfying. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Oct 15, 2024
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Eat the Night (2024) |
Eat the Night is three films unsatisfactorily blended into one; the only one to make any impact is that for which these filmmakers squandered all potential. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Oct 14, 2024
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Hard Truths (2024) |
It’s no surprise that Leigh has managed to make a funny, empathetic examination of a character one might cross the street to avoid, but Pansy feels emblematic of the societal mood at large, more so than any of his previous troubled protagonists. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Oct 14, 2024
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Three Kilometres to the End of the World (2024) |
It’s hardly the most egregious example of an LGBTQ story being pitched primarily towards a straight audience, but when touching on traumatic material to the extent this does, a little queer perspective wouldn’t have gone amiss. - AwardsWatch
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| Posted Oct 13, 2024
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All of You (2024) |
a richer, more grown-up screen romance than any I’ve seen recently––Goldstein and Bridges didn’t need any sci-fi hook to offer a fresh take on an oversaturated genre. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Oct 10, 2024
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Blitz (2024) |
There’s a stronger film inside Blitz that acts as a far more excoriating corrective to this nostalgic reimagining of an infamously dark period for the country––McQueen just can’t find a way to make that palatable through his young protagonist’s eyes. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Oct 09, 2024
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Terrifier 3 (2024) |
It's still rare for a horror film to be longer than two hours, but it's especially rare for a horror film of that length to feel rushed. - Looper.com
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| Posted Oct 07, 2024
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Apartment 7A (2024) |
“Natalie Erika James manages to follow a near-identical narrative formula to ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ but without the sense of genuine danger. A story that should retain its prescience is rendered nothing more than nostalgia bait.” - Vague Visages
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| Posted Sep 20, 2024
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The Substance (2024) |
Could very well be the most shallow and underwritten film ever to have its screenplay awarded at Cannes. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Sep 17, 2024
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Never Let Go (2024) |
If you prefer your horror to get under your skin with its ideas rather than shake you with its unrelenting scares, then there is plenty here that will keep you unsettled. - AwardsWatch
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| Posted Sep 16, 2024
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Transformers One (2024) |
The movie is unapologetically aimed at the children who have become an odd afterthought for this cinematic series so far and succeeds the most when not burdening itself with attempts to simultaneously satisfy the older fans. - Looper.com
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| Posted Sep 12, 2024
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Speak No Evil (2024) |
I can’t pretend I didn’t find it thrilling, but for all the excitement it offers, it doesn’t land with the same blunt impact as the original. - AwardsWatch
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| Posted Sep 10, 2024
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Rebel Ridge (2024) |
Rebel Ridge’s first two acts focus entirely on the protagonist’s increasingly desperate attempts to operate in good faith while goalposts are being moved in front of him, and it’s the most satisfying thing Saulnier has made this far into his career. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Sep 06, 2024
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Red Rooms (2023) |
An unsettling, uncompromising accomplishment. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Sep 03, 2024
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Between the Temples (2024) |
Despite the way Between the Temples deftly and subtly twists the knife on audience expectations for a specific type of “Sundance movie,” I found myself admiring its audaciousness without ever quite warming up to it. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Aug 21, 2024
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The Outrun (2024) |
If the aim was to get audiences to recognize that alcohol abuse doesn’t necessarily mean drinking yourself to death, then there's an importance to its approach. But what makes for a striking drug awareness campaign doesn’t make for a rewarding drama. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Aug 20, 2024
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Blink Twice (2024) |
It will likely prove divisive, but "Blink Twice" mostly succeeds due to its scathing nature, taking off the kid gloves that most recent eat-the-rich films have tackled the 1% with. - Looper.com
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| Posted Aug 17, 2024
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Borderlands (2024) |
Borderlands is the worst kind of bad movie; the type devoid of any offbeat quirks that could propel it to a second life as a cult classic, feeling insufferable and overlong at a brisk 102 minutes because of its sheer lack of originality. - AwardsWatch
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| Posted Aug 08, 2024
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Kneecap (2024) |
Takes great pleasure in getting laughs from addressing the taboos which remain in place long after The Troubles have ended. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Jul 27, 2024
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Crossing (2024) |
As with And Then We Danced, Crossing gradually reveals that Akin’s true storytelling talent is finding the authenticity beneath the most formulaic of queer narratives. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Jul 18, 2024
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Twisters (2024) |
Twisters is a minor triumph for the aspects you’d expect would get lost in the mix, understanding that a disaster movie only works if you care about the small-scale human drama caught in the middle of it. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Jul 10, 2024
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Longlegs (2024) |
I wish I was watching the campier psychodrama Cage believed he was making rather than the brooding, straight-faced mystery that never once tries to meet him at his level. - Looper.com
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| Posted Jul 09, 2024
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Sleep (2023) |
It’s far from perfect – and I don’t quite understand what Bong Joon-ho has seen in it to label it “the most unique horror film and the smartest debut film” he’s seen in the past decade – but there is plenty to enjoy here. - View of the Arts
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| Posted Jul 09, 2024
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MaXXXine (2024) |
Despite being a considerable step down from the Scorsese-approved psychodrama Pearl, there’s an awful lot of fun to be had, from the gruesome kills to the delightfully over-the-top performances. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Jun 27, 2024
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The Bikeriders (2023) |
Just flick through Lyons' book instead — any photo you land on will have more depth than the vast majority of scenes here. - Looper.com
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| Posted Jun 19, 2024
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Banel & Adama (2023) |
Sy creates an intoxicating, woozy atmosphere that sucks you into this hermetically-sealed community, which remains beguiling even as she doesn’t explore many themes surrounding her dark relationship drama with enough depth. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Jun 04, 2024
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All We Imagine as Light (2024) |
a tale distinct to the current climate in India, and yet, like all the best stories, there’s a universality in spite of the cultural specificity. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Jun 03, 2024
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Locust (2024) |
Ignore the specific cultural milieu; this is a broadly written tale of generational angst written in a way that young viewers can easily insert themselves into, attempting to be meaningful to all and likelier to prove meaningless to most. - View of the Arts
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| Posted May 22, 2024
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The Garfield Movie (2024) |
In trying to reinvent the lazy feline for modern kids, the filmmakers have lost track of the comedic tone that has helped these simple, gag-driven stories endure for decades. - Looper.com
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| Posted May 20, 2024
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Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024) |
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In achieves the impossible, thrilling with each elaborately choreographed fight even if the characters are archetypes too broad to invest in, and their every move designed with a lack of harsh realism. - View of the Arts
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| Posted May 20, 2024
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IF (2024) |
A movie about the boundless imagination of children that could only have been made by a cynical adult mind. - Looper.com
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| Posted May 15, 2024
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Coma (2022) |
Coma conjures up the spirit of 2020 like no other movie thus far, often feeling every bit as disorienting as it was to scroll through social media timelines during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. - Vague Visages
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| Posted May 14, 2024
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) |
It has the ideal third act for a Planet of the Apes movie– whether you want to sit through a near 90 minute journey that represents everything wrong with dystopian world-building in contemporary blockbusters to get there, however, is up to you. - The Film Stage
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| Posted May 08, 2024
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Humane (2024) |
A well-engineered, single-location thriller that prioritizes bloody, gut-punch twists and turns over the more thoughtful introspection that typically accompanies this in a Cronenberg effort. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Apr 24, 2024
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Back to Black (2024) |
It ghoulishly holds the singer accountable for many of the tragedies and misfortunes she suffered. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Apr 23, 2024
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Civil War (2024) |
Civil War is a lot smarter than meets the eye, and the film is far more incisive in its cultural critique than its director’s simplistic interview comments may make it seem. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Apr 10, 2024
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The First Omen (2024) |
What The First Omen lacks in innovation it makes up for in boldness, pushing familiar supernatural genre tropes about the secret relationship between the Church and the Devil to ideological extremes. - Vague Visages
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| Posted Apr 04, 2024
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The People's Joker (2022) |
The People’s Joker may take the shape of an unholy hybrid between personal essay and superhero-skewering satire, but it doesn’t forget what makes the best works within the genre it is parodying tick. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Apr 02, 2024
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Mothers' Instinct (2024) |
The beats are played as unsubtly as you’d expect within a melodrama that was likely aspiring to the highs of Douglas Sirk, but it crucially understands that sincerity is the key to selling such broad emotion. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Mar 26, 2024
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Wicked Little Letters (2023) |
[Wicked Little Letters] doesn’t deserve to be written off as a frothy comedy where Jessie Buckley hurls curse words at Olivia Colman, but I was left wishing the filmmakers would have grappled with the full, weighty potential of this material. - AwardsWatch
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| Posted Mar 22, 2024
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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) |
The widespread criticism of the "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" trailer, that it looked like the filmmakers thought they were creating the next part of a sci-fi saga rather than a comedy one, bears out in the finished product. - Looper.com
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| Posted Mar 20, 2024
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Femme (2023) |
The film wouldn’t have the same power if robbed of their sexual dynamic, which is the latest rebuke to any audience member arguing that such scenes serve no narrative purpose. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Mar 19, 2024
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Road House (2024) |
Gyllenhaal manages to hold this tonally inconsistent film together, but he’s the only person involved who has some clear handle on how this story should be told from beginning to end. - The Film Stage
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| Posted Mar 18, 2024
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