Reviews by Matt

I hate movie critics.

It may be hard to believe since it is what I do for the paper, but it is true nonetheless. Call me self-loathing, but it is the way I feel.

What bothers me is how the majority of them seem to have lost whatever it was about movies that made them choose it as their profession. Most are cynical jackasses who like films and hate movies.

Pauline Kael, considered one of the best movie critics, once said,

“Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them.”

It has become my philosophy on movies. It is fine to like the great movies, but if you cannot see the good in the bad ones then you cannot truly like any movie.

All this ranting brings me to “August Rush” and the subsequent reviews from the professional critics, not just some dope using what little free time he has writing for a college paper.

Concert cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) just finished performing at a concert in New York City and goes to a party to celebrate her success. There she meets Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) an Irish guitar player. They spend the night together on a rooftop talking about music. They get separated the next day and each thinks the other is lost for good. Lyla soon discovers she is pregnant and her father (William Sadler) thinks it will ruin her career. When a car hits Lyla he gives the baby up for adoption without her knowledge.

August Rush (Freddie Highmore,) her child, dreams of finding his parents. He has an innate gift for music and hopes to learn to play so his parents will hear it and find him. He runs away from the orphanage where he lives and makes his way to New York City. He meets “Wizard” (Robin Williams), a street performer who teaches children to play music.

Cheesy? Yes.

Predictable? You betcha.

Improbable? Well, it is a movie.

Original? Hell no. Then again these days is anything?

None of these make a movie any less enjoyable.

I will agree that “August Rush” was nothing special. It is another in a long line of movies that fall in the middle of the pack. It has been done better and it has been done worse before. The performances are all underwhelming and no one even comes close to standing out as the star.

Though, Robin Williams does stand out in a bad way. He continues to try to show that he is a dramatic actor and not just the coked up hyper-persona we see on television.

When “Wizard” first meets August, he is a mentor. When he sees the pure and amazing talent the boy has, he uses him. He begins to make deals for him. When he does not get his way, he gets angry and yells. He uses August to make himself more money.

This is hammered home over and over again when we see “Wizard” try to make deals. We do not need six scenes showing this. It is understood after the first two.

Even with the excessive amounts of “dramatic” Williams, the movie is still very enjoyable. It may try to be more then it is and fail miserably, but that does not make it a waste of time. It is a touching story of a young boy trying to find his place in the world.

The main problem many of the critics have with the movie is that it is unrealistic and too sentential. It is a movie. Sometimes a feel good movie is a good thing. So what if the plot is a stretch, it is a movie. It is fiction. All you need to do is sit back and enjoy.

6 out of 10
Rated PG for some thematic elements, mild violence and language.
1 hr 53 min