time up movie review

• Action/Adventure
• Children's/Family
• Documentary/Reality
• Amazon Prime Video

More From Decider

R.I.P. Shannen Doherty: '90210' & 'Charmed' Actress Dead at 53

Bette Midler Tearfully Shuts Down Hoda Kotb's Questioning During Emotional...

Were Rats Scurrying Across The Screen In 'The Bachelorette' Season 21...

Netflix Basic Plan Discontinued: Is Netflix Getting Rid Of Its Cheapest...

Michael Strahan Returns To 'Good Morning America' After Two Weeks Off The...

'The Bear' Season 3 Review: Carmy Secures His Role as The Chairman of The...

R.I.P. Martin Mull: 'Clue' & 'Roseanne' Star Dead at 80

Every Kevin Costner Movie Is A Western (Even When They're Not)

Share this:.

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to copy URL

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Time Is Up’ On Amazon, Where Bella Thorne & Her Real Life Fiancé Star As Angsty Teen Lovers

Where to stream:.

• Time Is Up (2021)
• Bella Thorne

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Viewer Discretion Advised: The Story of OnlyFans and Courtney Clenney’ on Tubi, a True Crime-Meets-Naked People Documentary

Stream it or skip it: ‘chicken run: dawn of the nugget’ on netflix, an acceptably amusing sequel that lacks the usual aardman special sauce, 7 movies like ‘totally killer’ if you loved the comedy horror film, 7 movies like 'through my window' to watch if you're in search of más amor.

In  Time Is Up , now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, real-life couple Bella Thorne and Benjamin Mascolo star as a dedicated physics student and a bad boy swimmer who find themselves unexpectedly falling for one another after her uptight boyfriend neglects her. Set in an unidentified suburbia and romantic Rome, Italy, Time Is Up  wants to show us that it’s never too late to learn to live life to its fullest. (I think?). 

TIME IS UP : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Vivien (Bella Thorne) is “serene”. Happiness is overrated, after all. She’s got a nice enough boyfriend, Steve (Sebastiano Pigazzi), a star swimmer, a supportive best friend (Bonnie Baddoo) by her side, and loving parents who seem to only want the best for her (even if her dad is traveling a lot more than usual). Vivien’s got a passion for physics, and she’s currently studying for a big exam that will potentially make or break her college future. Roy (Benjamin Mascolo), one of Steve’s swim teammates, meanwhile, struggles to keep his focus in the pool, thoughts of his late mother and his tumultuous relationship with his father swirling around in his head. They’re preparing for a big swim meet in Rome that’s now two weeks away, after which Roy might know what his future holds, and Steve promises to be a more attentive boyfriend to Vivien.

In the weeks leading up to the meet, a lot happens; Vivien realizes her parents’ marriage isn’t as happy as she thought, and she flakes on her big exam, too stressed and frazzled by revelations about her parents to take it. Her relationship with Steve only becomes more strained, and when he doesn’t show up to a Halloween party, she unexpectedly bonds with Roy – but only for a moment before he bails to keep training for the swim meet. In an effort to revive her relationship with Steve, she flies to Rome during the meet to surprise him. When she can’t find him at the hotel, however, she ends up spending the day with Roy, who is happy to show her his native Italy. Sparks fly between the two as they grow closer, but with secrets poised to be revealed at any moment and the future at stake, their happiness together may be short-lived.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?:   Time Is Up  might remind you a bit of the  After   movies,  The Kissing Booth , and alllllll the other bad teen movies with ridiculously soapy twists and turns out there.

Performance Worth Watching: Gotta give this one to Rome. (Yes, the city in Italy.) It is the only thing worth watching in this movie.

Memorable Dialogue: There are a lot of lines in  Time Is Up  that are totally nonsensical or just unintentionally funny, but “Are you serious? The day I almost died, you can’t remember what I was wearing?” might take the cake.

Sex and Skin: Some sexy pool fantasies, under-the-covers masturbating, and some hazy, cut-to-black stripping down and sex.

Our Take:  Time Is Up  is one of those movies that gets a little more silly every time it tries to be serious. From its faux-profound physics-related opening and closing narration to dramatic confrontations with little-to-no actual stakes, it’s honestly hard to tell what’s going on in this movie at all. This is probably the least of the film’s sins, but the title is incredibly vague and means almost nothing in relation to the film’s story, and the message at the heart is also unclear. Who are these people, and what’s really at stake here? Why is everything so dramatic? And *what* is this big test she’s taking? We’re given such little information about anything that the stakes are never appropriately raised, leaving us with a strangely wooden and unemotional viewing experience (despite the film’s attempts to tell us just how IMPORTANT these things are).

With a nonsensical script, stilted, self-serious dialogue, and robotic performances,  Time Is Up  doesn’t really make any case for itself. Even some of the shots of Rome feel cheap, which is sad, because it’s obviously one of the most beautiful places in the world. Maybe it was fun for Bella Thorne and Benjamin Mascolo to love it up on screen in a way that’s usually reserved for our Instagram feeds? I’m glad they had a good time, at least. It’s more than I can say for any of us forced to sit through the jumbled, unimaginative mess that is Time Is Up , a movie so devoid of substance and story I wonder if calling it a “movie” is too generous.

Our Call:  SKIP IT. Full of wooden performances, stilted dialogue, and a climax so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh, Time Is Up  is a forgettable mess.

Will you stream or skip the Bella Thorne/Benjamin Mascolo romance #TimeIsUp on @PrimeVideo ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) January 3, 2022

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines, hogging the mic at karaoke, and thirst-tweeting. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski .

Stream  Time Is Up  on Amazon

• Prime Video
• Stream It Or Skip It

'Live's Kelly Ripa Tells Rob Lowe He's "Failed As A Parent" After Learning That His Son Has "Never Seen" 'St. Elmo's Fire': "Culturally, The Most Important Movie Of All Time"

Kelly Ripa Admits To "Inappropriate" Backstage Interaction With Mark Consuelos On 'Live': "If We Weren't Married, I Would Probably Be Fired Right Now"

'House of the Dragon' Reveals Hugh the Hammer is the Son of Saera Targaryen, the Princess Who Became a Prostitute

Former 'DWTS' Pro Cheryl Burke Accuses Billy Ray Cyrus Of Kicking A Stage Manager During Rehearsal: "His Time Was Up After That"

When Will 'Heartland' Season 18 Premiere In The United States?

'House of the Dragon' Season 2 Episode 7 Ending Explained: How Many Dragons Does Rhaenyra Have? "The Red Sowing" Explained

Time is Up Movie

Who's Involved:

Bella Thorne, Lorenzo Ura, Benjamin Mascolo, Roberto Davide, Patrizia Fiorellini, Elisa Amoruso, Nikolay Moss, Sebastiano Pigazzi

Release Date:

Friday, September 24, 2021 VOD / Digital

Plot: What's the story about?

Vivien is a highly accomplished student, with a passion for physics and keen to get into a prestigious American university. She seems to live her own life as a mathematical formula that drives her to look at her own happiness as something to be postponed into the future. Roy, on the other hand, is a troubled and problematic young man who, due to a trauma suffered as a child, sees his desires continually hindered by a past that seems to constantly haunt him. But mathematics too has its variables and as always happens, life manages to weave events together in increasingly surprising and unexpected ways. Indeed, an accident will force our protagonists to come to a stop and reclaim their lives, and finally start living in a present that perhaps will prove to be more exciting than any predefined formula.

2.89 / 5 stars ( 18 users)

Poll: Will you see Time is Up?

Who stars in Time is Up: Cast List

Bella Thorne

The Trainer, Blended  

Benjamin Mascolo

After Everything, Game of Love  

Nikolay Moss

Roberto Davide

Sebastiano Pigazzi

Who's making Time is Up: Crew List

A look at the Time is Up behind-the-scenes crew and production team. The film's director Elisa Amoruso last directed Game of Love .

Elisa Amoruso

Screenwriters

Elisa Amoruso Lorenzo Ura Patrizia Fiorellini

Production Company

Voltage Pictures

Watch Time is Up Trailers & Videos

Official Trailer

Production: what we know about time is up, filming timeline.

• 2021 - September : The film was set to Completed  status.

Time is Up Release Date: When was the film released?

Time is Up was a VOD / Digital release in 2021 on Friday, September 24, 2021 . There were 13 other movies released on the same date, including Dear Evan Hansen , My Little Pony: A New Generation and Courageous .

Q&A Asked about Time is Up

Seen the movie? Rate It!

Advertisement

Follow the Updates

• Sun., Dec. 12, 2021 from voltagepictures.com
• added Voltage Pictures as a production company
• Wed., Sep. 22, 2021
• added photos to the photos gallery
• added Official Trailer to movie trailers & videos
• added Patrizia Fiorellini as screenwriter to movie credits
• added Lorenzo Ura as screenwriter to movie credits
• added Elisa Amoruso as director and screenwriter to movie credits
• added romance as a genre
• added Sebastiano Pigazzi as actor to movie credits
• added Roberto Davide as actor to movie credits

Looking for more information on Time is Up?

Across the web.

• Get Tickets + Showtimes
• Get Digital Copy
• Buy on Amazon
• More Info on IMDb

Get the latest on upcoming movies before everyone else!

Time Is Up (2021) Stream and Watch Online

Watch 'time is up' online.

Need to watch ' Time Is Up ' on your TV, phone, or tablet? Searching for a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or watch the Elisa Amoruso-directed movie via subscription can be tricky, so we here at Moviefone want to do right by you. Read on for a listing of streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription alternatives - along with the availability of 'Time Is Up' on each platform when they are available. Now, before we get into the various whats and wheres of how you can watch 'Time Is Up' right now, here are some particulars about the Lotus Production RAI Voltage Pictures romance flick. Released September 24th, 2021, 'Time Is Up' stars Bella Thorne , Benjamin Mascolo , Sebastiano Pigazzi , Bonnie Baddoo The movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 48 min, and received a user score of 65 (out of 100) on TMDb, which put together reviews from 621 top users. What, so now you want to know what the movie's about? Here's the plot: "Vivien an accomplished student with a passion for physics and Roy a troubled young man are involved in an accident that forces them to reclaim their lives one minute at the time" 'Time Is Up' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Tubi TV, Amazon Video, Apple iTunes, Google Play Movies, Plex Channel, Microsoft Store, YouTube, and Vudu .

'Time Is Up' Release Dates

Time is up collection.

A collection of romantic dramas set in Italy between Vivien and Roy.

Similar Movies

Featured News

Movie Reviews

Follow Moviefone

Latest trailers.

Advertisement

Supported by

Movie Review | 'Up'

The House That Soared

• Share full article

By Manohla Dargis

• May 28, 2009

In its opening stretch the new Pixar movie “Up” flies high, borne aloft by a sense of creative flight and a flawlessly realized love story. Its on-screen and unlikely escape artist is Carl Fredricksen, a widower and former balloon salesman with a square head and a round nose that looks ready for honking. Voiced with appreciable impatience by Ed Asner, Carl isn’t your typical American animated hero. He’s 78, for starters, and the years have taken their toll on his lugubrious body and spirit, both of which seem solidly tethered to the ground. Even the two corners of his mouth point straight down. It’s as if he were sagging into the earth.

Eventually a bouquet of balloons sends Carl and his house soaring into the sky, where they go up, up and away and off to an adventure in South America with a portly child, some talking (and snarling and gourmet-cooking) dogs and an unexpected villain. Though the initial images of flight are wonderfully rendered — the house shudders and creaks and splinters and groans as it’s ripped from its foundation by the balloons — the movie remains bound by convention, despite even its modest 3-D depth. This has become the Pixar way. Passages of glorious imagination are invariably matched by stock characters and banal story choices, as each new movie becomes another manifestation of the movie-industry divide between art and the bottom line.

In “Up” that divide is evident between the early scenes, which tell Carl’s story with extraordinary tenderness and brilliant narrative economy, and the later scenes of him as a geriatric action hero. The movie opens with the young Carl enthusing over black-and-white newsreel images of his hero, a world-famous aviator and explorer, Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). Shortly thereafter, Carl meets Ellie, a plucky, would-be adventurer who, a few edits later, becomes his beloved wife, an adult relationship that the director Pete Docter brilliantly compresses into some four wordless minutes during which the couple dream together, face crushing disappointment and grow happily old side by side. Like the opener of “Wall-E” and the critic’s Proustian reminiscence of childhood in “Ratatouille,” this is filmmaking at its purest.

The absence of words suggests that Mr. Docter and the co-director Bob Peterson, with whom he wrote the screenplay, are looking back to the silent era, as Andrew Stanton did with the Chaplinesque start to “Wall-E.” Even so, partly because “Up” includes a newsreel interlude, its marriage sequence also brings to mind the breakfast table in “Citizen Kane.” In this justly famous (talking) montage, Orson Welles shows the collapse of a marriage over a number of years through a series of images of Kane and his first wife seated across from each other at breakfast, another portrait of a marriage in miniature. As in their finest work, the Pixar filmmakers have created thrilling cinema simply by rifling through its history.

Those thrills begin to peter out after the boy, Russell (Jordan Nagai), inadvertently hitches a ride with Carl, forcing the old man to assume increasingly grandfatherly duties. But before that happens there are glories to savor, notably the scenes of Carl — having decided to head off on the kind of adventure Ellie and he always postponed — taking to the air. When the multihued balloons burst through the top of his wooden house it’s as if a thousand gloriously unfettered thoughts had bloomed above his similarly squared head. Especially lovely is the image of a little girl jumping in giddy delight as the house rises in front of her large picture window, the sunlight through the balloons daubing her room with bright color.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

CULTURE MIX

Where Lifestyle Cultures Blend

Review: ‘Time Is Up’ (2021), starring Bella Thorne and Benjamin Mascolo

Arts and Entertainment

Antonella Britti , Bella Thorne , Benjamin Mascolo , Bonnie Baddoo , drama , Elisa Amoruso , Emma Lo Bianco , Giampiero Judica , Italy , movies , Nikolay Moss , reviews , Sebastiano Pigazzi , Time Is Up

October 3, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Time Is Up” (2021)

Directed by Elisa Amoruso

Culture Representation:  Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city and in Italy, the romantic drama “Time Is Up” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class .

Culture Clash:  At an unnamed high school, a “good girl” who’s an aspiring physicist falls for a “bad boy” who’s a rising star on the school’s swim team, even though she already has a boyfriend who’s on the same swim team.

Culture Audience:  “Time Is Up” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching cliché-ridden, badly acted dramas about teenagers .

“Time Is Up” is an example of what happens when filmmakers think that all you need for a romantic drama are some pretty actors and a scenic trip to Italy. It’s too bad they forgot about actually making a good movie. This substandard film is like being in a car wreck of teen drama clichés. And that’s not just because the movie actually does have a car wreck, which causes the female protagonist to experience amnesia soon after she has fallen in love with someone new.

“Time Is Up” is also one of those movies that has a trailer that gives away 85% of the plot, including the amnesia part of the story that doesn’t happen until the last third of the movie. There’s only one plot twist in the movie that isn’t in the trailer: It involves a secret same-sex affair of two people whose reputations would be ruined if the secret got out.

“Time Is Up” director Elisa Amoruso co-wrote the movie’s atrocious screenplay with Lorenzo Ura and Patrizia Fiorellini. The movie attempts to go for the tone of an epic romance, but in reality, “Time Is Up” is a cheesy teen soap opera. One of the movie’s biggest flaws is in its casting: The main actors who portray high schoolers look too old to be in high school.

We’ve seen this formula too many times before: A “good girl” in high school falls for a brooding “bad boy.” If he goes to the same school, he’s usually a new student who’s a mysterious and troubled loner. There’s usually some obstacle that prevents them from getting together right away. (The obstacle is usually a love triangle.) And so, the would-be couple will spend a lot of screen time pouting and eyeing each other lustfully before one of them makes the first move.

“Time Is Up” is a parade of pouting by cast members who know how to look sullen and bored more than they know how to act. Vivien (played by Bella Thorne) is in her last year in high school in an unnamed U.S. city. She’s an aspiring physicist (with a preference for quantum physics), who spouts this laughable, pseudo-physics mumbo jumbo in a voiceover narration in the beginning of the film:

“In the void, pairs of particles are continuously created. Their only destiny is to meet and disappear into each other. When two particles that have interacted with each other are separated, they are no longer distinct particles. The same thing happens when two people fall in love. Even when life pulls them apart, they’ll always carry a trace of the other person inside.”

As soon as you hear this silly schmaltz, you know you’re going to have to brace yourself for more as this movie plods to its very predictable end. Vivien attends an unnamed private high school, where most of the students come from privileged families. Her boyfriend Steve (played by Sebastiano Pigazzi) is a star of the school’s male swim team. Vivien has a sassy best friend (played by Bonnie Baddoo), who seems to be just a token character because the filmmakers never bothered to give her character a name.

Also on the school’s swim team is a new student named Roy (played by Benjamin Mascolo), a heavily tattooed rebel who lives in a trailer park. Roy has a swimming scholarship to attend the school. He has the talent to be the best swimmer on the team. Roy was born in Italy and moved to the U.S. with his family when he was in middle school, so he still has an Italian accent.

But when Vivien and her best friend attend a swim practice, it looks like Roy could be putting his scholarship in jeopardy. Roy has been slacking off during practice, so he gets yelled at by the team’s coach Dylan (played by Nikolay Moss). Dylan warns Roy that if Roy doesn’t improve, Roy won’t be chosen for the swim team’s competitions, and he could lose his scholarship.

Roy shouts back at Dylan: “What are you? My dad? I already have one! I fucking hate him!” Meanwhile, Steve smirks nearby when he sees this conflict between Roy and Dylan, because Steve wants to be considered the team’s best swimmer. Steve feels somewhat threatened that Roy (who’s a better swimmer) could outshine Steve on the team.

One day, Steve, Vivien and Vivien’s best friend are riding in Steve’s car when Roy becomes the topic of the conversation. Vivien’s best friend thinks that Roy is very attractive, and she mentions that she wouldn’t mind having a one-night stand with Roy. She asks Steve for more information about Roy. Steve says that Roy mostly keeps to himself.

Vivien and Steve seem to have a solid relationship on the outside. But lately, Steve has been very preoccupied and doesn’t have time for Vivien in the way he used to have time for her. He’s also not as affectionate with her as he used to be.

Vivien’s best friend notices that the romance between Vivien and Steve has cooled down. Even though Vivien insists that she’s happy with Steve, her best friend comments, “You’re not happy. You’re serene, which is totally different.”

The romantic spark has also apparently dwindled in the marriage of Vivien’s parents. Early on in the film, Vivien (who is an only child) finds out that her mother Sarah (played by Emma Lo Bianco) has been having an affair with another man. Vivien’s businessman father (played by Giampiero Judica), who doesn’t have a name in the movie, is away from home a lot because of his work.

As for Roy’s family, he lives with his widowed father (who’s a mechanic) and pre-teen sister in a dumpy and cluttered trailer. Roy’s father is American, and Roy’s late mother was Italian, which is why Roy and his parents lived in Italy for the first 11 or 12 years of his childhood.

Roy later tells Vivien that one of the reasons why he has hard feelings toward his father is because Roy didn’t want to leave Italy, but it was his father’s decision to move to the United States after Roy’s mother passed away. Roy eventually reveals to Vivien how Roy’s mother died. (Antonella Britti portrays Roy’s mother in this brief flashback.)

At a costume party at a student’s house, Vivien and Roy see each other across the room and they start dancing together. And because this movie is filled with teen movie clichés, a fight inevitably breaks out at the party. You don’t have to be a psychic to know who ends up in the brawl.

Vivien and Roy have another encounter when she’s in the parking lot of a restaurant at night. It’s the same restaurant where Vivien saw her mother on a date and kissing another man. In the parking lot, some young thugs start to harass Vivien. But lo and behold, Roy shows up and comes to Vivien’s rescue.

It turns out that Roy knows these troublemakers because he’s been involved with some criminal activities with them. Later in the movie, Roy is shown committing burglary by breaking into a house with one of his hoodlum pals. They don’t get caught, and the burglary is never mentioned in the movie again.

Vivien’s problems at home and her problems with Steve have upset her to the point where she starts doing her own version of rebelling. There’s a scene where she shows up in a classroom where the teacher is handing out a test to the students. Vivien doesn’t even sit down before she decides she’s going to walk out of the class without taking the test. She doesn’t just walk out. She has to do a dramatic, pouty saunter, as if she’s on some kind of fashion runway.

And what do you know: The swim team is traveling out of the country to go to a swimming competition. And guess where they’ve gone? Italy. Vivien wants to bring the passion back to her romance with Steve. And so, she decides to go to Italy to surprise Steve at the hotel where the swim team is staying.

For reasons that won’t be revealed in this review, Steve isn’t available for most of the trip. But guess who’s available to show Vivien around this part of Italy? You get the gist of what happens in the movie’s trailer. There are no real surprises in how Roy ends up courting Vivien, even though he tells her in a not-very-convincing way that he doesn’t want to fall in love.

Vivien and Roy get together, of course, and they even have (cliché alert) a couple’s signature song: Frankie Valli’s 1967 hit single “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” Expect to hear this tune played multiple times in the movie.

“Time Is Up” is plagued by a lot of uneven acting. Thorne can sometimes rise to the occasion in the melodramatic scenes. But too often, she recites her lines in a wooden and emotionless way. Mascolo is even worse, since his acting is very stiff and unnatural in too many parts of the movie. He’s an example of an actor who was hired more for his physical appearance than anything else. The fact that Thorne and Mascolo became a couple in real life doesn’t help their lackluster acting skills in this movie.

The rest of the cast members are adequate in their performances, which are overshadowed by the cringeworthy dialogue throughout much of the movie. The cinematography often tries to make “Time Is Up” look glossy and glamorous, but mostly the movie comes off looking like a badly edited and cheap-looking romance novel. And worst of all for a romance movie, the main characters have personalities that are as plastic as Ken and Barbie dolls. At least Ken and Barbie aren’t as forgettable as this lazy and unimaginative film.

Vertical Entertainment released “Time Is Up” for one night only (via Fathom Events) in U.S. cinemas on September 9, 2021. The movie was released on digital and VOD on September 24, 2021.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 79% Deadpool & Wolverine Link to Deadpool & Wolverine
• 96% Dìdi Link to Dìdi
• 100% I Am: Celine Dion Link to I Am: Celine Dion

New TV Tonight

• 100% Batman: Caped Crusader: Season 1
• 93% A Good Girl's Guide to Murder: Season 1
• -- Futurama: Season 12
• -- Women in Blue: Season 1
• -- Unstable: Season 2
• -- Hotel Portofino: Season 3
• -- Betrayal: The Perfect Husband: Season 2
• -- Unsolved Mysteries: Season 4
• -- Cowboy Cartel: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 80% Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• 50% Those About to Die: Season 1
• 69% The Decameron: Season 1
• 89% House of the Dragon: Season 2
• 100% Supacell: Season 1
• 76% Lady in the Lake: Season 1
• 93% The Boys: Season 4
• 78% Presumed Innocent: Season 1
• 79% Time Bandits: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• 100% Batman: Caped Crusader: Season 1 Link to Batman: Caped Crusader: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

100 Best Found Footage Movies

25 Essential Stoner Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Batman: Caped Crusader First Reviews: A Solid Throwback with Top-Notch Performances

The Most Anticipated Movies of 2024

• Trending on RT
• Paris in Movies
• Comic-Con Trailers
• Cosplay Gallery
• Vote: Most Anticipated August Movie
• Upcoming Marvel Movies

Poll: Vote for Your Most Anticipated Movie of August

From all types of chilling horror to heartfelt drama, there's a lot to choose from this month

Best Movies of 2024

Deadpool & Wolverine is an irreverent romp with a surprising soft spot for a bygone era of superhero movies

Batman: Caped Crusader Reviews

A solid throwback with top-notch performances

Poll: Vote for Your Most Anticipated Show of August

This month includes a bunch of returning favorites, new options and some new familiar titles reimagined

Box Office: Deadpool & Wolverine Sets New Record

Meanwhile, Inside Out 2 becomes highest-grossing animated film ever

Best Found Footage Movies

As The Blair Witch Project turns 25, explore this list of must-see found footage films

Comic-Con Trailer Round-up

Including The Penguin , Transformers One , Like a Dragon: Yakuza , and more!

2024 Box Office: Top 10 of the Year

Deadpool & Wolverine debuts with $211 million, largest R-rated opening ever

2024 Paris Summer Olympics

Go for gold and watch now!

Most Anticipated Movies

Get tickets & watch Alien: Romulus in theaters August 16

Summer of Cinema

New & Upcoming In Theaters

WATCH AT HOME

Popular streaming movies.

• Deadpool 85%
• A Quiet Place: Day One 87%
• Once Upon a Deadpool 56%
• The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare 69%
• Hit Man 95%
• Deadpool 2 84%
• Wicked Little Letters 80%
• Land of Bad 66%
• Star Wars: The Acolyte 80%
• Those About to Die 50%
• The Decameron 69%
• House of the Dragon 89%
• Supacell 100%
• Lady in the Lake 76%
• Batman: Caped Crusader 100%
• The Boys 93%
• Presumed Innocent 78%
• Time Bandits 79%

Most Popular Movies In Theaters

Latest certified fresh movies & tv, new reviews added, new tv this week.

• A Good Girl's Guide to Murder 93%
• Futurama - -
• Women in Blue - -
• Unstable - -
• Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie - -
• Hotel Portofino - -
• Betrayal: The Perfect Husband - -
• Unsolved Mysteries - -
• Cowboy Cartel - -

Trailers & Videos

Deadpool & wolverine.

The cast shares behind the scenes exclusives

Transformers One

Straight from Comic-Con: Check out this new trailer for Transformers One

Our recommendations on what to watch in theaters and at home

Joker: Folie à Deux

Watch the new trailer starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga

Seen on the Screen

A Celebration of Universal Stories

Movie & TV guides

Discover What to Watch

Best Movies of All Time

Rotten Tomatoes Podcasts

What is Up ?

It is a love story. A tragedy. A soaring fantasy, and a surreal animated comedy. A three-hankie weepie and a cliffhanging thriller. A cross-generational odd-couple buddy movie; a story of man and dog. A tale of sharply observed melancholy truths and whimsically unfettered nonsense.

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Moral/spiritual value, age appropriateness, mpaa rating, caveat spectator.

On top of all that, Up opens with a standalone cartoon short ( Partly Cloudy ) and a newsreel, like going to the Saturday double-bill matinee in the old days, when Carl Fredrickson was a shy, wide-eyed lad who idolized dashing celebrity explorer Charles Muntz and dreamed of adventure, but became tongue-tied in the overwhelming presence of the irrepressible, voluble young Ellie, his polar opposite and kindred spirit.

Up opens with an eloquent, economical prologue that is among the most arresting tributes to lifelong love that I have ever seen in any film, let alone a cartoon. Joy, serenity, hope and heartbreak, dreams long cherished and long deferred — a lifetime of indelible memories effortlessly evoked in a few brief minutes.

Now a stumpy, crusty old geezer who lives by himself in a forlorn bungalow glaringly out of place in a neighborhood in the throes of urban upheaval, Carl (Edward Asner) is a widower, but Ellie remains very much a presence in the film. She is still the center of Carl’s world, and their love story is the only story he has.

No, Carl won’t hear of selling his house to the faceless suit who razes and erects worlds around him. He doesn’t want the help of the hopelessly earnest young Wilderness Explorer Russell (Jordan Nagai), doggedly fixated on doing the old man a good turn to earn his missing “Assisting the Elderly” merit badge.

Above all, Carl is contemptuously determined that whatever his future holds, it won’t be the sanitized comfort of the Shady Oaks retirement home. What other animated film has contemplated the anxious stubbornness of the elderly to cling to whatever independence they can for as long as they can, to remain connected to familiar places and things? What other animated film even has a senior citizen for a protagonist? ( Howl’s Moving Castle doesn’t count; Miyazaki’s doddering heroine is really a youth in a grandmother’s body.)

And then things start to unravel, and Carl’s future is no longer in his hands — not without reason, to his guilty shame. You may have seen or known about similar cases from the outside; Up shows us the story from Carl’s inside perspective.

And so we come to the great conceit celebrated in the much-seen trailers. If you’ve seen the trailers, you don’t need me to describe it, and if by some twist you haven’t, why would I rob you of the moment of revelation? It is a sequence of singular magic, and the delight of discovery comes but once.

Suffice to say, Carl precipitously decides to throw caution to the winds and embark on the long-dormant dream he and Ellie shared: to follow in the footsteps of their childhood hero Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) and go to South America to see the spectacular Paradise Falls in the “Lost World” of Venezuelan mesa country. Yes, the journey started in that magical moment has a destination; Up is not the aimless, lofty film one might imagine from the trailer.

Yet nothing so far could prepare you for the lunacy that commences once the film reaches the vicinity of Carl’s destination. Somehow, like Dorothy with her cyclone, like Muntz in those old newsreeels, Carl has left the ordinary world behind and landed in a “Lost World” of his boyhood pulp fantasies — a world of lighter-than-air airships and biplane dogfights, of exotic refugees from a Dr. Seuss zoology, of “Wallace & Gromit”–esque dogs who cook, among other things, and even (in a conceit echoing the film version of Michael Crichton’s “Lost World” tale Congo ) communicate in a way that is both goofily human yet hilariously canine.

As wonky as the proceedings get, director Pete Docter ( Monsters, Inc. ) and screenwriter and co-director Bob Peterson ( Finding Nemo ) never entirely lose touch with the ragged human emotions underlying the story. There’s an obvious metaphor in the film itself for the strange blend of realism and zaniness, partly tethered to solid ground, partly twisting in the capricious winds of whimsy.

More fundamentally, Carl’s house, the film’s central metaphor, is the embodiment of his shared life with Ellie, and thereby a symbol of Ellie herself. Up offers a sweeter and less uncanny counterpoint to Gil Kenan’s Monster House , a darker computer-animated tale of a crotchety, reclusive old widower inhabiting a house that’s as much a character as the humans, with a mind of its own. Ellie’s childhood “Adventure Book,” a scrapbook documenting her exploits and aspirations, with its blank pages saved for her hoped-for trip to South America, epitomizes the tension between unrealized dreams and what turns out to be the actual stuff of our lives.

But it goes deeper than that. Not to spoil the emotional and narrative territory, I’ll append some brief final thoughts to the end of the review for readers who have seen the film.

There is also poignancy in Russell the Wilderness Explorer’s back story, and in the simple vignettes in which, ultimately, two broken lives prop one another up. Although not as centrally or violently, Up feels the gulf of grief and betrayal in the wake of the absentee father as acutely as The Spiderwick Chronicles — another family film in which a house is much more than a house.

As powerful as the emotional underpinnings are, the characters experiencing those emotions don’t quite come entirely into their own. They’re somewhat archetypal, not entirely unlike the characters in WALL-E , rather than fully realized, specific individuals, like those of Finding Nemo , The Incredibles and Ratatouille . In part because of this, for all its emotional power, for all that Up gets right, on first viewing I find the overall effect to be poignant and charming rather than enthralling.

Rarefied standards, applicable only to the work of Pixar. The very fact that I came this close to the end of this review without mentioning the studio’s name or comparing it to previous works is a testament to their sustained achievement. There was no need. Only one team in the world is doing work like this.

I did not cry while watching Up , though certainly many will, but I was moved to tears afterward thinking about it. It has become commonplace to say that Pixar makes films as much or more for adults as for children, but this is too facile. Up is a film about life that makes realities of adult and even geriatric experience universally accessible, even to the youngest viewers. Isn’t this among the noblest things a story can do?

Final thoughts (thematic spoilers)

For viewers who have seen the film, some parting thoughts about the symbolic depths of Carl’s house.

As noted above, the house represents both Carl’s shared life with Ellie and Ellie herself, who even in her absence remains the defining fixture of Carl’s life.

At first, the house — Carl’s memories, his mourning, his love for his late wife — is his refuge, his solace in a world that is moving on without him, leaving him behind. Then, in a moment of crisis, the house becomes his escape, his freedom. It buoys him up, elevates him above an intolerable situation.

As time goes on, though, the house starts to become something else: a burden. Baggage. An increasingly torpid, even ridiculous dead weight that he feels obliged to drag laboriously around everywhere he goes.

In the end, it threatens to become something worse: a death trap. It is something Carl must let go. Maybe not all at once — maybe it starts with piecemeal efforts that lighten the load — but in the end the whole thing has to be cut loose.

And then, a paradoxical miracle: Only when he lets it go does it finally take its rightful place in the whole drama of his life. The whole story-arc of the house is an astoundingly fluid metaphor for bereavement, grief, loyalty to departed loved ones, malaise and the threat of morbidity, and finally acceptance and something like peace.

Available on DVD and Blu-ray, Up comes loaded with extras, including commentary by directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, a new short with Dug the dog (“Doug’s Secret Mission”), and behind-the-scenes featurettes on story development (“The Many Endings of Muntz”) and the filmmakers’ expedition to Venezuela’s tepui highlands (“Adventure is Out There”).

Blu-ray extras offer tons more: featurettes on several characters (elderly Carl, young explorer Russell, brightly-plumed Kevin, even Carl’s house!), a geography game and more. The Blu-ray set also comes with the movie on standard DVD, so it’s worth getting even if a Blu-ray player is still well in your future.

I have mostly stopped reading movie reviews prior to viewing the movies, except for the reviews you write. Perhaps I just read the wrong reviewers, but I’ve noticed that more and more of them pretty much just give away the entire story and leave no room for surprise. It’s almost as though movie reviewers these days want to make sure that the movie consumer knows exactly what their $9.00 (or whatever it costs in your market) is getting them. It sure doesn’t leave a lot of room for surprise and wonder. This was brought to mind rather strongly in comparing your review of Up with the review published by another Christian venue for the same movie. I read yours before seeing the movie (I skipped the spoiler section on first reading, though your spoilers tend to be more coy than most), and the other review post-viewing. While I appreciated the other critic’s insights into some of the themes, I found the six or seven paragraphs summarizing almost the entire movie to be way to revealing. The review gave away too much. I say this not to pick on the other critic, but to illustrate what I see to be a general trend in movie reviews. I’m not a particularly observant movie watcher. I know little about movie-making technique, and I rarely sit around after viewing to analyze what it was that made the story work. I find reviews helpful to tip me off to things to keep an eye out for that I might otherwise miss, insights that amplify the viewing experience, and of course, whether the movie is one I might want to see. For me, a good review is one that I can read both before and after seeing the film and get something out of each time, while also getting to enjoy the movie itself. So thank you. Your reviews are consistently excellent (even when I have to disagree with your conclusions), and have been instrumental in pushing me to see movies I might not otherwise have seen (e.g. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days ). You don’t give away the story or spoil the movie for me, either. For all these things, I am grateful. Thank you!

I think you should up (no pun intended) your rating to an A+. I saw the movie with my teenage kids and they were moved by the incredible love of the couple. I’ve never seen love expressed so simple and so joyful in a cartoon movie.

Thank you for your “final thoughts” on the real role of the house in Up . There was something about the house’s relationship with Carl I didn’t quite get at the time (possibly because I was holding a 2-year-old on my lap, and the moment of the great house-purging occurred just as he — the 2-year-old — ran out of cherry icee — otherwise, he sat through the entire thing in rapt attention), but your comments on how [ spoiler alert ] the house became a burden to be dragged around and Carl’s piecemeal attempts to rid himself of it before realizing it was a real life-trap made the whole movie click for me. And, for what it’s worth, I was one of the guys who cried in the theater (probably the only time during the movie I was glad we’d seen it in 3‑D … those tinted buddy holly glasses are good for something). Not too many animated movies deal with the unsharable grief of a miscarriage (and certainly none with that degree of economy and emotional precision). But then, I cried in Cars (and every other Pixar movie), too, when Route 66 gets bypassed and Radiator Springs becomes a forgotten ghost town, so maybe I’m just a sucker for a good story.

Up was a joy. Your review not only encouraged us to go see it, it magnified our pleasure with the qualities and values it presented. Thanks for your site. You’re a gifted educator.

Thank you for your interesting review of Up . I thought the film was “cute”, but I was personally disappointed after all the hype. Something bothered me (besides the repetitive soundtrack): there were a lot of violent elements in the film (life-threatening situations for the heroes). I understand this is a cartoon, but at the same time, this is not a film with talking cars, superheroes, animated toys, or talking animals (well … okay). We have a character who tries to kill the young Wilderness Explorer not once, not twice but three times (the last time with a shotgun!). When the crazy guy falls to his death, there is no reaction from our “heroes” (not even shock or horror) — their only concern is for the house (and for the weird bird). This situation kinda felt odd in a film geared to young kids.

What are you opinions on the character of Kevin as a gay/transgendered character (colorful, rainbow-like character)? I’ve read that this was a subtle nod by Pixar to the Prop 8/GLBT crowd. I saw the movie and didn’t pick up on it, but others who have seen it had commented on this. I am interested to hear your opinion on this.

I’ve read a lot of reviews of Up , but I don’t think I have heard anyone addressing this particular issue [ spoiler warning ]. When Carl lifts up his house for his trip to Central America, he severs his home’s plumbing and electricity. He makes it clear that he doesn’t have any more balloons or helium. He can’t go back. He only has the food he keeps in the house, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to find more edibles in the jungle (and he certainly isn’t prepared to hunt). If he has a medical emergency, there is no doctor or hospital for maybe hundreds of miles. That leads to one conclusion: Carl is going to South America to die. Carl is clearly really healthy for his age (evidenced by all the physical activity he performs), but if he did succeed in moving his house to the cliffs, he would probably only have a few weeks before he died, probably of starvation. This journey is not just an adventure, it’s a suicide mission. I think that the heart of the story lies in Russell (and also Doug’s) ability to make Carl come alive once more. Once Carl realizes that he has a responsibility to others besides himself, Carl realizes that he has to fight to stay alive. I would like to make some comments on your final thoughts on the great metaphor that is Carl’s house. I think that in making the journey, Carl is trying to write the last chapter of his life, and the love story between himself and Ellie. By ripping it from the ground and disconnecting all pipes and wires, he has deliberately rendered it impossible to live in for very long. He has tried to draw the curtain on his life, but Russell and Doug draw it back again, and for the first time since Ellie’s death, Carl has someone to live for — thank goodness.

• Crisis of meaning, part 3: What lies beyond the Spider-Verse?
• Crisis of meaning, part 2: The lie at the end of the MCU multiverse
• Crisis of Meaning on Infinite Earths, part 1: The multiverse and superhero movies
• Two things I wish George Miller had done differently in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• Furiosa tells the story of a world (almost) without hope

Now Playing

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors.

Now streaming on:

This review was originally published on October 9, 2020 and is being republished for Black Writers Week. 

“Time” is an intriguing title for Garrett Bradley ’s documentary about Sibil Richardson’s 20-year battle to get parole for her incarcerated husband. The titular noun is open to many interpretations: It could stand for the term describing a jail sentence, or the notion that all a prisoner has in a cell is time or, most devastatingly, how the incarcerated person’s life remains in a holding pattern while time carries life’s events forward on the outside. Kids grow up without parents, spouses endure without better halves, and parents grow older without their children bearing witness. Whatever the director’s symbolic intentions for naming the film, this beautiful and haunting documentary reminds us that there’s a human being behind those prison identification numbers, someone who is loved and is missed.

Bradley uses Sibil’s black and white home movies to show the passage of time. The film starts with one of her six children, Raymond, joking about how many girls he’s going to get on the first day of Kindergarten. We also see Sibil kissing her husband, Robert, in their car, a playful moment where he acknowledges the camera recording their affection for posterity. She will eventually become an advocate for the rights of the incarcerated while simultaneously trying to get Robert’s parole granted. Specifically, she hones in on how people of color receive harsher sentences for crimes than their White counterparts. “Our prison is nothing but slavery,” she tells a group who came to hear her speak. “And I am an abolitionist.”

History and current events remind us that, if you’re Black or brown, your reputation must be spotless. If you are arrested, falsely or otherwise, or killed by police, the first thing the news media and law enforcement do is determine how to discredit you so that it appears you got what you deserved. The company you kept, your youthful indiscretions, or even simply just looking like less than a respectable choirboy put you in the position to be more harshly sentenced or vilified. Felons of any race are often shunned upon release, stripped of much of their humanity even though the debt to society has been paid. They can’t vote, and many places will not hire nor rent to them.

If someone were innocent of a crime, and unfairly sentenced, they would also be subjected to this outcome. Sibil and Robert are guilty, however, so they do not automatically earn the outrage that viewers could engage if they were not. But this film isn’t seeking easy outrage; it’s simply enlisting our empathy and concern while documenting the effects of a corrupt system. It also touches on themes of faith and forgiveness, and the difficulties of cutting through the red tape of the judicial process.

“Time” lets us know early on that the Richardsons did the crime. On September 16, 1997, they pulled a heist at a Shreveport credit union. Before this, they ran the city’s first hip-hop clothing store and were well known in the community. With four kids at home and Sibil pregnant with twins, one can only imagine the financial desperation that led to armed robbery. In the state of Louisiana, the crime earns five to ninety-nine years. On June 15, 1999, Sibil took 12 years in a plea deal and was paroled in three-and-a-half. Robert rejected his deal and received an excessive sentence of 60 years without any hope of parole.

Once released, Sibil returns to her children, moves to New Orleans and begins the fight to get her husband re-sentenced. When we first see one of Sibil’s speaking engagements, she tells the audience that she has been on the outside for 15 years. From here, “Time” concerns itself with the most recent attempt at a potential re-sentencing verdict. Sibil wades through much bureaucracy, from having to wait for days while judges sit on reviewing Robert’s case to falling victim to a lawyer who does nothing yet charges $15,000 for his uselessness. Several scenes show Sibil calmly calling clerks and secretaries to get status updates. She seems unflappable, so when she finally loses composure and lashes out, cursing into the void, it’s a powerful, relatable response.

The footage Bradley presents of the family over the years was shot and narrated by Sibil, a visual record she’s been keeping for the man she has loved since she was 16. These documenting images change quickly, in montage and without any timestamp. Eventually, we realize the youngest twin sons, Justus and Freedom, are about to turn 18 and have grown up without knowing their father as a free man. They’re both college students, sharp and motivated. Though Sibil narrates most of the film, Bradley allows Justus to offer his own words for a few scenes. An older brother, Richard, is shown in medical school. With these scenes highlighting growth and resilience, “Time” refuses to be some kind of tragedy porn. Sibil and her brood demand justice, not pity. Her strength carries the film and elevates her sons toward success.

Most of “Time” takes place three weeks before a parole hearing may be scheduled for Robert. But this timeframe doesn’t play as a suspense thriller with tricks that manipulate one’s emotions. We never see Robert in jail, for example. Instead, the details come and go at the pace of real life, to the point where we feel tethered to the Richardsons like kin, each of us eagerly waiting for news to trickle down to us. Joining us is Robert’s mother, a character who spouts the type of wisdom tempered with tough love that any Black son or daughter will immediately recognize. Her attitude throughout is basically “I support you and I’ll pray for you, but y’all know you shouldn’t have done that b.s. in the first place!” As memorable as Sibil is, her mother-in-law steals the movie.

“Time” ends with a scene that will wring maximum tears of joy from the viewer. But those tears are bittersweet because the one currency humans cannot make more of is time. In a preceding sequence that doesn’t feel gimmicky at all, Bradley runs some of Sibil’s home movie footage in reverse, as if somehow dragging the clock backwards to make up for lost time. It’s a noble attempt that evokes an ethereal sense of grace. The crisp, black and white cinematography makes the entire film feel like a poetic ode to perseverance. The Richardsons will never get the years back that they’ve lost, but we’re left with hope that a triumphant future will stem from their reunion.

Now playing in select theaters; available on Amazon Prime on October 16

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire  here .

Now playing

Deadpool & Wolverine

Matt zoller seitz.

The Imaginary

Carlos aguilar.

Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam

Brian tallerico.

Sarah-Tai Black

Find Me Falling

Monica castillo.

Glenn Kenny

Film credits.

Time (2020)

Fox Rich as Herself

• Garrett Bradley

Latest blog posts

Mike Leigh to Receive Ebert Director Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival

Looking Into My Soul: Colman Domingo on Sing Sing

Prime Video Has What Batman Fans Need in Caped Crusader

SDCC 2024: Back Bigger and Better

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app

Movie Reviews

• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

How to Talk with Kids About Violence, Crime, and War

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

Parents and caregivers, find movies by age.

How old is your kid?

You can add another kid later.

What streaming service(s) do you have?

0 selected. Click on logos to select.

Set content limits for your kid

If a media pick exceeds the content limits you've set for your kid, you'll see this flag. Learn more

Violence & Scariness

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

What's your kid's name?

We value your privacy and will not share this publicly.

Already have an account? Sign in first

New Streaming Movies

Mean Girls (2024)

Anyone But You

Poor Things

Dune: Part Two

The Holdovers

The Boys in the Boat

The Marvels

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Orion and the Dark

The Iron Claw

Kung Fu Panda 4

The Beekeeper

The Boy and the Heron

New in theaters, great watch-together picks, popular with parents, family laughs.

Screen Rant

'up' review.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

"I Hate To Leave Him Hanging": Jake Gyllenhaal's Road House 2 Gets Cautious Update From Director Doug Liman

2024's transformers movie gives a middle finger to michael bay's movies, the clint eastwood movie that john wayne disliked so much he wrote him a letter about it.

There's nothing better than an easy review: Pixar's latest summer offering, UP , is a fantastic film. Simply fantastic. Seriously, if Ratatouille and Wall-E deserved to be in the running for Best Picture of the Year (as many said they did at the times of their releases) then UP certainly does.

It's that good.

The film - which was written by Bob Peterson ( Finding Nemo , Ratatouille ) and directed by Peter Docter ( Monsters, Inc. ) - delivers all the things we've come to expect from a Pixar animated feature: gorgeous visuals, a strong story rife with moral lessons and (gasp) good character development; humor both low-brow (for the kids) and high-brow (for the grownups), with strokes of bold wit and a dash of sagely wisdom for good measure.

And yet, UP also delivers something quite unexpected: Pixar's most adult-oriented story yet, slyly disguised in a fantastic adventure tale.

UP tells the life story of Carl Fredricksen (the unmistakable voice of Ed Asner), a shy little boy who grows up in (1930s?) America, an era in which people pack into movie theaters to watch news reels about adventurous explorers like Charles Muntz, who travels the world on one epic quest after the next.

Young Carl Fredricksen idolizes Muntz: He spends his lonely days roaming his neighborhood pretending to be Muntz until one day he runs into Ellie, an energetic and fearless young girl (everything Carl is not) who idolizes Charles Muntz just as much as Carl does. Ellie and Carl cross their hearts then and there and swear to be great adventurers like Charles Muntz, and with that oath, theirs is a match made in heaven.

After that fateful first encounter, we get a truly beautiful montage of Carl and Ellie's life-long romance. We see the young kids grow into a teenage couple; see them get married and buy a house, working day jobs (balloon vendor) while saving up for the kind of adventures they fantasized about as kids. We watch the couple deal with the ups and downs, joys and tragedies of life; and gradually we watch them grow into old age, Ellie's "My Adventures" scrapbook still unfilled, even as her time on Earth ends.

With Ellie gone, Carl becomes a disgruntled old man desperately trying to hold on to a house, heirlooms and a lost-love he cherishes. A physical confrontation with neighborhood developers leads to Carl being forced into a retirement home for the rest of his days - but before the old man will give in he decides to honor the oath he and Ellie swore as kids and take one last shot at adventure! Carl ties an impossible number of balloons to his house (working a balloon cart at the zoo was his job for many years), rigs a steering system and UP he goes!

But there's a stowaway on board: a young boy scout-type named Russell (Jordan Nagai), who is desparately trying to earn his last merit badge assisting the elderly, for personal reasons that are as moving as a they are heartbreakingly naive. From that point on, the story mainly focuses on Carl trying to find room in his broken heart for love and friendship again, with Russell acting as his primary foil and simultaneous source of inspiration. Russell is also handy for providing the comedic relief the kids will get.

Of course there's a whole flying to South America, evil nemesis (Christopher Plummer), talking dogs/mythical bird adventure thrown in there.  All of that stuff is pretty cool, and will be sure to entertain the kids. However, as one of the grownup kids, the story (for me) was all about Carl dealing with his profound sense of loss and love. The flying house escapism, fantastic creatures and evil villains were all just means and metaphors for that awesome emotional narrative.

No lie, there were a lot of sobs and sniffles around me in the theater. If you're old enough to know about love and loss, it's hard not to be affected by UP . By now it's no secret that Pixar knows how to tell a fantastic story, but who knew they could handle romantic drama so well? Superb work.

Visually, UP is just as stunning. The digital 3D tech employed for this film is far from a gimmick - it enhances the experience of the film by multitudes. When Carl and Russell are walking over cliffs or trekking through gorgeously rendered South American jungles, with an enormous floating 3D house harnessed to their backs, it's not just some of the most gorgeous eye-candy seen onscreen (the balloons are truly amazing), it's also a very clever and potent metaphor for grief. Rendered in 3D, those themes stood out loud and clear; the rest of the time, this movie was just a treat to look at.

I confess having wet eyes myself, not once, or twice, but on several instances during UP . Sometimes I was thinking, "This movie is breaking my heart." Other times I was thinking, "This movie is melting my heart." And sometimes, I was simply thinking, "This movie is so damn beautiful."

It definitely lifted me UP .

Pixar's Up follows widower Carl (Ed Asner) who travels to South America with young wilderness explorer Russell (Jordan Nagai) by attaching thousands of balloons to his home after the bank threatens to foreclose on it. Discovering the legendary Paradise Falls, Carl meets his childhood hero, explorer Charles Muntz. However, Muntz isn't the kind-hearted man Carl hoped he would be, and the grieving widower finds himself pitted against his former idol.

• Movie Reviews
• 5 star movies

‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ Review: They Should Have Gone Back to the Drawing Board

Crockett Johnson's beloved 1955 storybook becomes one more adaptation of a children's classic that swaps in formula for magic.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

• ‘Shine On — The Forgotten Shining Location’: A Documentary Meditation on Stanley Kubrick’s Rooms of Fear 1 day ago
• ‘Faye’ Review: An Enticing Portrait of Faye Dunaway Looks at Where Acting Meets Life Meets ‘Difficulty’ 1 week ago
• ‘My Spy The Eternal City’ Review: Dave Bautista Anchors a Kiddie Espionage Caper That’s Too Generic to Fly 2 weeks ago

Related Stories

Some olympics tv is in 4k, but viewers care little for the format: survey, 'house of the dragon' season 2 finale leaks on tiktok and twitter/x, popular on variety.

Take a popular kids’ tome; squeeze the juicy idiosyncrasy out of it; swap in standard corporate entertainment parts; and voilà, you have a hit! (Or that’s the theory.) For every film like “Charlotte’s Web,” Gary Winick’s tender and authentic animated adaptation of the E.B. White barnyard classic, there are too many more like “Harriet the Spy,” which gave us that book’s voyeuristic heroine without the angst that made her memorable, or “Stuart Little,” which crushed E.B. White’s melancholy in a compressor of slapstick, or the raucous fiasco that was “Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat,” or the charmless comedy of “Mr. Popper’s Penguins”…the list goes on and on.

The title character, played by the grown-up prankster Zachary Levi (huh? More on that in a moment), starts off as a cartoon figure living in a drawn world, kind of like the world of the books. But then, having been abandoned by his “old man” creator, he lands in the real world, and “Harold and the Purple Crayon” instantly converts to that quintessential formula: the fish-out-of-water comedy. It’s also one of those movies in which a live-action universe becomes the backdrop for an animated character like Garfield or Sonic. Except that the “character,” in this case, is simply the drawings that Harold does. Over the course of the movie, he draws a spare tire, a two-seater bike, pies and ice cream, skateboards and roller skates, a gleaming propeller plane, a giant lock and wrecking ball (to escape a prison), a griffin, and a spider-fly with vicious teeth.

Even young viewers of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” may feel they’ve seen versions of most of these effects before. For what made the book special wasn’t just that Harold could draw anything. It was the wide-eyed feeling with which he did it.

“Harold” the movie replaces wide eyes with audience-tested conceits, starting with the fact that someone thought Zachary Levi’s performance as a kid-inside-an-adult-superhero’s-body in the first “Shazam!” would somehow make him perfect to play Harold. But where Levi’s performance in “Shazam!” was sly and understated, here, walking around in what looks like the world’s weirdest Hawaiian shirt, he’s all gawky, eager, italicized-kid overacting. Harold has two animal sidekicks, both of whom appear in human form: Moose, played with antic glee by Lil Rel Howery , and Porcupine, who appears as a purple-mohawked punk played by the fiery Tanya Reynolds, who someone should waste no time casting in a Sinéad O’Connor biopic.

The director, Carlos Saldanha, a veteran of animation (“Rio,” the “Ice Age” films), stages the dramatic arcs in David Guion and Michael Handelman’s screenplay as if they were made of pasteboard. Harold and company befriend young Mel (Benjamin Bottani) and his widowed mother, Terry ( Zooey Deschanel , in one of those hardheaded-mom-who’s-the-only-sane-person-in-the-room roles). The kid has replaced his missing father with imaginary friends, and it’s the kick of Harold’s drawings that’s supposed to bring joy back to his life.

Reviewed at Sony Screening Room, New York, July 30, 2024. MPA Rating: PG. Running time: 92 MIN.

• Production: A Sony Pictures Releasing release of a Columbia Pictures, Davis Entertainment production. Producer: John Davis. Executive producers: Jeremy Stein. Jenny Hinkey.
• Crew: Director: Carlos Saldanha. Screenplay: David Guion, Michael Handelman. Camera: Gabriel Beristain. Editors: Mark Helfrich, Tia Nolan. Music: Batu Sener.
• With: Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benjamin Bottani, Zooey Deschanel, Jemaine Clement, Tanya Reynolds, Alfred Molina.

More from Variety

Ryan reynolds says ‘i let go of getting paid’ on ‘deadpool’ and ‘took the little salary i had left’ to pay for the screenwriters to be on set, olympics screenings in movie theaters highlight exhibitors’ need for alternative content, ‘deadpool & wolverine’ first reactions praise ryan reynolds and hugh jackman’s ‘dynamite’ chemistry, ‘epic’ cameos: ‘a game changer for the mcu’, channing tatum rejoices over gambit debut in ‘deadpool & wolverine’: ryan reynolds ‘fought for me’ after i thought i lost the character forever , how gen ai will change 16 film & tv production jobs: vip+/harrisx survey data, new movies out now in theaters: what to see this week , more from our brands, druski just dropped a u.k. drill track, ‘no more social media’, review: this bmw 3 series sedan is the strong, silent type—until it’s not, ufc’s $335 million settlement rejected, trial date set for october, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, house of the dragon’s season 2 finale leaks on tiktok.

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Is Already Among the Top 10 Highest-Grossing R-Rated Hits of All Time

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

The Big Picture

• Deadpool & Wolverine smashes records with a new Tuesday benchmark for R-rated films, passing the $500 million mark globally in just five days.
• The film, a tribute to the Fox era of superhero movies, features a partnership between Deadpool and Wolverine to save Deadpool's universe.
• With a reported budget of $200 million, the movie marks Deadpool's MCU debut and is set to become the biggest R-rated film in history.

At this rate, a billion dollars isn’t going to be Deadpool & Wolverine ’s ultimate goal, but simply a stepping stone to bigger achievements. The superhero blockbuster continued its record-breaking spree, setting a new Tuesday benchmark for R-rated films. The movie previously set opening weekend and first Monday records for R-rated movies, beating the first Deadpool film on both counts. On its fifth day of release, the movie passed the $500 million mark at the global box office , and found itself entering an elite list domestically.

With an estimated $25 million haul on Tuesday, according to Deadline , the film’s running domestic total now stands at around $260 million. This makes Deadpool & Wolverine one of the top 10 highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time at the domestic box office, and it hasn’t even been a week. The movie has now overtaken The Hangover: Part II , and trails blockbusters such as The Hangover ($277 million), The Matrix Reloaded ($281 million), Deadpool 2 ($324 million), It ($328 million), Oppenheimer ($329 million), Joker ($335 million), American Sniper ($350 million), Deadpool ($363 million) and The Passion of the Christ ($373 million).

With over $500 million worldwide, Deadpool & Wolverine is the sixth-biggest film of the year so far , behind Kung Fu Panda 4 ($546 million), Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($569 million), Despicable Me 4 ($680 million), Dune: Part Two ($711 million), and Inside Out 2 ($1.5 billion). Deadpool & Wolverine has also already overtaken the lifetime hauls of several recent Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ($463 million worldwide), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($432 million worldwide), Eternals ($401 million).

'Deadpool & Wolverine' Is Guaranteed to Become the Biggest R-Rated Film In History

Produced on a reported budget of $200 million, Deadpool & Wolverine marks the Merc with the Mouth’s debut in the MCU — the highest-grossing film franchise in history — after Disney’s takeover of 20th Century Fox and its assets some years ago. The movie also features the fan-favorite Wolverine, with Hugh Jackman returning to play the character after having bid farewell to him in 2017. Directed by Shawn Levy , Deadpool & Wolverine functions as a tribute and a sendoff to the Fox era of superhero movies , which predated the MCU and introduced an entire generation to the genre.

In the film, Deadpool and Wolverine partner up to prevent the annihilation of Deadpool’s universe at the hands of an overzealous Time Variance Authority middle manager named Mr Paradox, played by Matthew Macfadyen . The movie, which received mainly positive reviews , also stars Emma Corrin as the villainous Cassandra Nova, and features a host of cameos from unexpected characters. You can watch Deadpool & Wolverine in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Deadpool & Wolverine

Wolverine joins the "merc with a mouth" in the third installment of the Deadpool film franchise.

• Cast & crew

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Inside of his book, adventurous Harold can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book's pages and into the physical world, Harold finds... Read all Inside of his book, adventurous Harold can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book's pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life. Inside of his book, adventurous Harold can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book's pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life.

• Carlos Saldanha
• David Guion
• Michael Handelman
• Crockett Johnson
• Zachary Levi
• Lil Rel Howery
• Benjamin Bottani

Top cast 52

• Detective Love

• Junior Detective Silva

• Supreme Bro #1
• (as Boston William-Inez Pierce)
• Supreme Bro #2

• Kid (Library)

• Kid's Mom (Library)

• (as Seth Zane Robbins)

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

The Big List of Summer Movies

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Originally intended as a fully CGI film by Sony Pictures Animation, but instead became a live action/animation hybrid film with the animation scenes not being done by any studio of Columbia's in particular, with 7 VFX companies from around the world with the visual effects.
• Connections Referenced in OWV Updates: The Seventh OWV Awards - Last Update of 2022 (2022)
• How long will Harold and the Purple Crayon be? Powered by Alexa
• August 2, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• Official Site
• Harold và Cây Bút Phép Thuật
• Atlanta, Georgia, USA (main location)
• Columbia Pictures
• Davis Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 32 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

More From Forbes

Review: ‘deadpool & wolverine’ best buds are box office gold.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Marvel Studios reasserts their summer movie season bonafides this weekend with Director Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine . Written by Levy and Ryan Reynolds, the film brings Deadpool (Reynolds) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, reprising his role from the X-Men films) into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with a variety of cameos by other Marvel characters. The result is best buds who are box office gold.

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman star in "Deadpool & Wolverine."

Despite recent blockbusters, 2024 is still lagging far behind last year at this time, when Barbie and Oppenheimer supercharged theatrical business. Marvel itself has suffered some downturns and lost their general reputation for being a sure thing. And now that Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 are slowing, everyone is more than ready for Deadpool & Wolverine to revive the studio, the superhero genre more broadly, and breath some fresh life into the summer season.

Estimates for Deadpool & Wolverine’s debut weekend vary widely, between $350 million and potentially $400 million worldwide, with most expecting something in the $370 million range. These projections include a domestic bow of at least $150 million and possibly closer to $180 million, depending on word of mouth.

The opening numbers for Deadpool & Wolverine will also depend somewhat on how many folks wait for ideal premium theater seats to open up a few days after opening weekend, a trend we’ve seen before with these huge tentpoles that overperform in IMAX, Dolby Cinemas, and other premium formats.

$175 million domestic and $375 million globally is my expectation for Deadpool & Wolverine’s freshman outing, and I’m betting on some big weekday figures and a terrific second weekend hold. If it opens above $155 million stateside, then Deadpool & Wolverine will best Inside Out 2’s bow last month as the biggest debut of 2024 so far. Whether that translates into a run at the 2024 box office crown or not remains to be seen.

‘Say It To My Face’: Harris Issues New Trump Debate Challenge At Raucous Atlanta Rally

Today’s nyt mini crossword clues and answers for wednesday, july 31, nyt ‘strands’ hints, spangram and answers for wednesday, july 31st.

Longterm, if it plays like the previous two films, it would have a roughly 2.7x multiplier. Which suggests even on the lower end of estimates and with a slightly weaker multiplier, it should still easily become the highest grossing Deadpool movie of the franchise — I must note, the first Deadpool had a budget of only $58 million in 2016 and grossed $782 million, while the new film has an MCU-sized budget of almost $200 million, and that’s without comparing their marketing budgets. Low-end outcomes are in the $850-875 million range, and high-end is north of $1 billion.

This is the first Deadpool film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it also features Hugh Jackman’s iconic Wolverine, so it always seemed likely to break out into higher territory than the franchise has tread before. Without spoiling anything, the fact that it also includes a large number of cameos of other Marvel characters from across the history of superhero cinema provides some additional buzz.

I think Deadpool & Wolverine will ride a tide of buzz, audience enthusiasm for this type of tentpole sequel lately, positive word of mouth, and the must-see factor that comes from dropping X-Men and certain other superheroes and teams into the MCU for the first time. So I’m guessing it can fight its way to at least $900 million, and on the higher end perhaps finish in the $1 billion range.

But I’m bullish on the film, and have been for a while. There is definitely a chance that the R-rating will suppress some of the potential audience turnout — and make no mistake, Deadpool & Wolverine is filled with a constant stream of profanity and vulgarities of tremendous originality, not to mention graphic gore and violence that probably sets a new bar for the franchise. Not that kids have much trouble sneaking into R-rated movies, but it’s harder during weekdays when parents are at work, so there’s a lot of younger viewership excluded, inherently capping some potential.

While there’s a powerful desire to reserve certain secrets so they land perfectly for audiences, there’s also a good argument that after opening weekend Marvel should consider releasing trailers that reveal a few of the surprise characters — there are a couple who’d probably goose the opening weekend figures a noticeable amount. There’s also a gorgeous slo-mo money shot of Deadpool and Wolverine leaping together in full costume during a late battle that will make people’s eyeballs pop out of their heads, and I’d consider sticking that shot at the end of a TV spot next week.

But this is all speculation about hypothetical extra dollars, and I doubt Deadpool & Wolverine will wind up feeling that potential lost revenue. Besides, this just means a later PG-13 rerelease can put extra coins in the coffers later this year, since there’s a relative lack of big-ticket entertainment on the calendar through the rest of the year. Christmastime saw Once Upon a Deadpool’s brilliant The Princess Bride -inspired reworking of Deadpool 2 into a PG-13 version that’s superior to the R-rated version.

What sort of hilarious new framework they could come up with for a similar PG-13 rerelease of Deadpool & Wolverine remains to be seen, but Once Upon a Deadpool was good for an additional $51 million, so I’d argue it’s more than worth it. And come Christmas season, we might all need a good helping of pure escapist entertainment.

And that’s certainly what Deadpool & Wolverin e is — pure escapist entertainment, a rollicking fun time and laugh riot from start to finish, with a thin plot and little sense to it all but nobody cares because we love watching these characters together.

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are in top form as the titular mutants Deadpool and Wolverine. Physically, they both look terrific and their costumes are the best we’ve seen in their respective super-series — fans have been thrilled to see Wolverine’s yellow and blue suit (compare that to the silly arguments among some fans over Superman’s costume , which looks great). They’re playing characters they feel comfortable and at home with, in an odd couple road trip that knows precisely what audiences want and expect from this movie and delivers it in spades.

It’s not an insult to say the film smartly doesn’t let plot points or logic get in the way of telling a good, fun story carried by the endless charisma of its two leads and their on-screen personas. They have such great chemistry together, all you want is for the story to keep getting back to their bickering/budding Martin and Lewis friendship.

Jackman’s already done the redemptive arc for Wolverine and it was amazing, so it’s a testament to how good he is — and how well he fits the role — that he manages to sell a new version of it all over again, and we’re all-in for the ride. Likewise, Reynolds was born to play Deadpool, but the fact he keeps finding something deeper to explore and say with the character — without betraying the core of who and what Deadpool is all about — reminds me of how underappreciated Reynolds is as a performer. This film also proves that, as a writer, Reynolds understands his characters enough to let them be themselves and allow that to carry the picture.

While the film is perceived as setting up the MCU’s immediate-future multiversal machinations, it actually doesn’t move the needle much in that regard, compared to what it does to bring together and tie up a lot of loose ends in Marvel’s broader cinematic history in fun ways, while creating a potential bridge for these characters into Marvel’s future.

Granted, you need to be at least familiar with Marvel’s Loki streaming series on Disney+, and be aware of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men and Fantastic Four movies from past decades. Otherwise, much of what’s going on will make little sense to you, and some of the cameos might be confusing — one in particular will probably make no sense at all if you’ve only seen the MCU movies but none of Fox’s old films.

That said, any confusion you feel will be mostly irrelevant, because while you’ll miss a few great jokes and the point of some cameos, and while you won’t know precisely who or what is actually driving the plot itself, most of that doesn’t matter — the gist is, there’s a multiverse and the other worlds from Fox and Sony films are at risk of ceasing to exist, so Deadpool jumps around trying to fix it, and Wolverine winds up as his ally on the mission. The rest is all about watching them run from one crazy location to another, arguing and joking and fighting each other or whatever next crazy villain or hero they run into from Marvel’s past.

In other words, don’t be worried if you hear the film requires awareness of a lot of other movies and TV shows. If you see a character or cameo and it doesn’t make sense to you, just think, “oh this must be a character from an old Marvel movie” and go with it. Trust me, within two minutes something else will come along that you’ll recognize and love.

And really, that stuff is all icing on the team-up cake of Deadpool & Wolverine . Watching Reynolds and Jackman riff as these characters is more than worth the price of admission, and be sure to stay through the credits — not only is there a great montage for part of it, there is also a final end credit scene that you’ll regret missing if you leave early.

This being an MCU film, the bigger budget is up there on the screen, with some exceptional action sequences including a third act battle with some of the finest Wolverine or Deadpool fight moments in their respective film histories (including a few that will have fans in the audience cheering out loud). There’s also some unexpected faces (and shoulders) popping up in various roles and cameos, made possible by that bigger budget.

I don’t want to give anything away, so I will avoid saying much more, other than this feels top to bottom like an MCU movie. Even the profanity and graphic violence doesn’t overshadow the overall sense that this is Deadpool’s world through the MCU lens, and a look at what we can probably expect when more of the X-Men show up.

And I’ll say now, if this is a glimpse at what the X-Men will look and be like in the MCU, I’m excited. It will be hard to match or top films like X2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past , but Deadpool & Wolverine makes me confident Marvel is up to the task.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘deadpool & wolverine’ review: ryan reynolds and hugh jackman rely on smirks and sentiment in overstuffed team-up.

Emma Corrin plays a powerful adversary and Matthew Macfadyen a shady tech agent in Shawn Levy's adrenaline-charged superhero threequel.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

Related Stories

Wolverine co-creator roy thomas on his 'deadpool & wolverine' credit: "my name should have come first", gina carano calls for pedro pascal, kathleen kennedy to testify over 'mandalorian' firing, deadpool & wolverine.

A similar existential anxiety might run through the head of any movie critic attempting to approach this installment with something more nuanced than gushing hyperbole. Will reviews, either good or bad, matter at all to a release that promises to be a crowd-pleasing box office juggernaut? Not in the least when each MCU cameo and callback and ironically deployed pop song elicits squeals of joy from the audience. Does that mean it’s good? No, but that’s a way more complicated question, and the answer will depend entirely on what you want out of it.

The connection between Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman ’s brooding steel-clawed mutant started with a hostile face-off in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine . But since the emergence of a kinder, gentler Deadpool in the wiseass character’s first stand-alone movie, Wade has carried on a long-distance flirtation with Wolverine.

Given Reynolds’ tireless propensity for sassy gay humor, that was bound to get a little moist now that they finally share star billing in a bickering buddy movie, blurring the line between lovers and fighters, even if their blood-drenched fights are plenty vicious. As a preamble to the most violent of them, Wade turns direct to camera and advises: “Get your special sock out, nerds. It’s gonna get good .”

Spoiler etiquette prevents me from going much deeper, but I will say it’s around this time that a sick feeling planted itself in my stomach and a dreaded thought began to form in my brain: “Oh no, the fucking multiverse again!” I did laugh at Wade’s side note that The Wizard of Oz did the multiverse first and it should have stopped there. “The gays knew it and we didn’t listen.” But the jokesmiths, sorry, screenwriters — alongside Reynolds, that includes Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells and Levy — are still not listening, so we get a whole lot of trouble caused by Paradox’s unsanctioned “time ripper.”

An early scene has Wade applying to join the Avengers and getting a firm no from a character who’s the first of too many cameos to count. A challenging few years later, Wade is still licking his wounds and selling used cars. But all that changes when the TVA goon squad brings him in, though not before he can eye their truncheons and say, “Pegging is not new for me. But it is for Disney.” If you’ve been waiting for a character in a Disney release to say, “I’m not naturally a bottom,” your wait is over.

That applies as much to the filmmakers as to Deadpool. Even before the snippets of Fox’s Marvel movies and old EPK interviews with Reynolds and Jackman over the end credits — poking the lump in fans’ throats with Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” — it’s obvious there’s a ton of love for the cosmology and its characters. Levy, who directed Reynolds in Free Guy and The Adam Project and Jackman in Real Steel , is never in doubt that fan service is the principal job requirement. That and a foot clamped on the accelerator, although speed doesn’t necessarily equal momentum.

For the core audience, the gags will be reward enough, even if the rest of us might squirm as the sloppily staged action grows repetitive, the plotting haphazard and the humor so self-aware the movie threatens to disappear up its own ass. And is it too much to ask for a blockbuster that looks at least halfway decent?

I’ll be honest, I found this movie messy and overstuffed, but I laughed almost as often as I cringed from its obnoxiousness and can’t dispute that a vast audience will delight in every moment. Even if they spend much of the running time sticking blades through each other’s handily regenerating flesh, Reynolds and Jackman make sweet love and appear to be having a great time doing it. They bring a semblance of heart. Both characters have their share of regrets, but both are offered redemption here; both get to matter .

As Deadpool says of Wolverine with a smirk: “Fox killed him. Disney brought him back. They’re gonna make him do this till he’s 90!” Not for the first time we’re reminded that comic-book IP is a place where no one ever truly dies.

Full credits

Thr newsletters.

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Toronto film fest signs new lead sponsor, kevin costner’s ‘horizon: an american saga – chapter 2’ to get venice world premiere, locarno unveils 6 spanish projects for work-in-progress section, mark hamill explains why his new film ‘wild robot’ brings back first ‘star wars’ feelings, joaquin phoenix recalls lady gaga “spitting up coffee the first time i sang” in ‘joker: folie à deux’, jason reitman’s ‘saturday night live’ movie gets new title ahead of fall release.

Deadpool & Wolverine sees Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds team up for the first MA-rated MCU movie

Warning: This article contains spoilers.

For an invincible superhero blessed with Hugh Jackman's turgid physique, it's hard not to feel bad for the Wolverine. Across eight different films, we've watched as the downtrodden mascot of the X-Men has been twisted into a screaming pretzel, disintegrated by the love of his life, and even whacked in the face with an atomic bomb.

Even in death, he can barely catch a break. The opening of Deadpool & Wolverine sees Logan's grave dug up by Ryan Reynolds' asinine anti-hero, and his exhumed adamantium skeleton subsequently wielded as a makeshift nunchaku against a squad of disposable baddies.

As NSYNC blares and CGI brain matter splatters over the title credits, Deadpool proudly rings in the first MA-rated MCU movie.

In the first of many fourth-wall breaches, Deadpool asks the audience to lower their expectations, reassuring us that his latest sequel doesn't intend to honour the legacy of 2017's Logan (which remains a crowning achievement of superhero cinema, if no longer a lasting farewell).

Wolverine's T-1000-esque corpse is quickly ditched, our hero goes multiverse hopping, and a new Logan is dragged into this movie from an alternate dimension, finally realising the beloved comics team-up of the title.

The exact plot mechanics of how the movie gets to that point matters little, but begins with Deadpool's failed audition for the Avengers six years ago, which spirals into an early mid-life crisis.

Deadpool is offered a chance to prove his heroism when Mr Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen doing a half-hearted Tom Wambsgans ), a middle manager at the Time Variance Authority (last seen in the Loki TV show – seriously, don't worry about it), hand-picks him to save an alternate reality.

The catch: accept that his own decaying timeline must be 'pruned', along with all his loved ones. When Deadpool rebels, he recruits a desolate Wolverine to help set the multiverse straight.

Despite needing a glossary to be entirely understood — two seasons of a Disney+ show should not be required reading! — Deadpool & Wolverine never meaningfully intersects with the MCU, nor does it suggest a bold path forward for the ailing franchise. 

The film instead finds its purpose as a sincere send-off to the now-retired line of Fox superheroes who dominated the early 2000s, only to lose sight of its lead characters.

Little of Deadpool's limited repertoire has changed since his first outing; you likely know by now whether you care for his brand of dick jokes and comic ultraviolence. But six years of Ryan Reynolds mugging the camera in a uniquely terrible run of off-brand movies (6 Underground notwithstanding) has irreversibly eroded his genuine charms.

Similarly, we're left yearning for our country's greatest showman to play a different tune. Despite being designated as the multiverse's 'worst' variant, this Wolverine is barely more of a booze-addled screw-up than Jackman's previous incarnations; the actor is given little more to do than mope about as a reluctant hero for the umpteenth time.

If there was a way to make these setpieces dramatically interesting, or at least cool to look at, a creatively exorcised journeyman like Shawn Levy (Free Guy) is not the one to find it.

Levy continues to fortify his brand as a director of glorified Fortnite cut scenes. To restore their worlds, the heroes must trek through the literal trash heap of The Void: a purgatory for cinematic superhero rejects. Modelled after the irradiated wasteland of Mad Max, it's an homage that feels nine years late, but just in time to be humiliated by Furiosa.

Ruling over this Battle Royale map is Emma Corrin's (The Crown) Cassandra Nova, the never-before-seen twin of Professor X who boasts similar telepathic powers and more than a passing resemblance to Tilda Swinton's Ancient One.

It's a little tragic that the gratuitous cameos are the unambiguous high point of the film. Deadpool & Wolverine wisely treats its guests as more than one-off jokes; forgotten heroes are given a final hurrah, and even granted unrealised ambitions.

In no world should mainstream superhero films ever be taken seriously as scruffy underdogs, but it is worth commemorating a pre-MCU era in which superhero failures could be cheaper, riskier, and trashier. Cinema once dared to envision Troye Sivan as Wolverine. Conversely, our current superhero failures largely feel like a grim march towards brand-compliant obsolescence.

Deadpool & Wolverine could've made a better case for its outcasts had it bothered to take any risks of its own. For all its outsized crassness and gore, it still doesn't dare breach the one big Disney no-no: sex.

At this point, the genuinely unexpected, boundary-pushing thing for the series to do is to truly embrace the raunch of an MA-rated comedy, and take Deadpool's canonical queerness seriously — rather than just talk a big game.

He is, after all, 'the Merc with a Mouth'.

Deadpool & Wolverine is screening in cinemas now.

• X (formerly Twitter)

Related Stories

Can godzilla minus one's oscar win disrupt the marvel machine.

The Marvels has had the MCU's worst opening weekend at the box office. What went wrong?

Ryan Reynolds delivers note-perfect, irony-laden performance as 'Merc with a Mouth'

• Arts, Culture and Entertainment
• Comedy (Film)
• Film (Arts and Entertainment)