Guy Pearce

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The annoying and boring “Lockout” is a pile of aggressive junk masquerading as a good time. Some critics and viewers will pretend that this is a “fun B-movie” just because it has a few over-the-top sequences (that look completely cartoonish), an absolutely ridiculous premise, and a scenery-chewing performance from the great Guy Pearce.

Rating: 1.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Seeking Justice” must have been such a juicy proposition on paper. Director Roger Donaldson is coming off his most interesting film in years (“The Bank Job”), Nicolas Cage is overdue for a quality drama, Guy Pearce is one of our most interesting actors, and the supporting cast includes a number of interesting actors with recent TV hits – Jennifer Carpenter (“Dexter”), Harold Perrineau Jr. (“Lost”), and January Jones (“Mad Men”). The only thing you’ll be wondering during this inert alleged thriller is where it all went wrong.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Echoing elements of masterful works by Producer Guillermo Del Toro (most notably “The Devil’s Backbone,” “Pan’s Labyrinth”), “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” is an incredibly frustrating remake, a film that reminds one of scary movies instead of actually producing scares itself.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” has been barreling through the awards season with a number of significant nominations, including six from the Chicago Film Critics Association just today. I understand why. The film does nothing wrong. It features confident production values and good performances but never reaches the peak of excellence for this critic. “The King’s Speech” is a good film that’s been inflated by some viewers to great even if it doesn’t quite deserve the throne.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The thin line between anarchy and social peace is shriveling into a microscopic blur as sentencing and incarceration become increasingly less effective as a deterrent. The human side of this perspective is explored with an artistic elegance, featuring Guy Pearce in writer/director David Michôd’s “Animal Kingdom.”

Rating: 5.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Filmmaking simply doesn’t get much more riveting than Kathryn Bigelow’s incredible “The Hurt Locker,” a cinematic experience unlike any other that you will have this year. Building and releasing tension better than her peers have in a long time, Bigelow has made not only the best Iraq War movie to date but the best film of 2009 at just over the halfway point.