Rotten Tomatoes
Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes
Publications list

PerthNow

PerthNow is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Wenlei Ma.

Prev Next
Rating Title | Year Author Quote
2/5
Argylle (2024) Wenlei Ma If you’re looking for a movie that will follow at least its own internal logic Argylle ain’t it. The film is a wreck.
Posted Feb 01, 2024  Edit critic review
4/5
Anatomy of a Fall (2023) Wenlei Ma Anatomy of a Fall asks its audience to think about how we think about things and how we choose what we believe. It’s interested in the form of storytelling as much as it is interested in telling a story.
Posted Jan 29, 2024  Edit critic review
3/5
Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024) Wenlei Ma A moody, gripping and solid follow-up.
Posted Jan 29, 2024  Edit critic review
4/5
Priscilla (2023) Wenlei Ma Sofia Coppola is gifted at capturing the interiority of her young female characters.
Posted Jan 22, 2024  Edit critic review
5/5
The Holdovers (2023) Wenlei Ma Alexander Payne has balanced The Holdover’s acerbic wit with generosity. So few filmmakers are capable of managing tone the way Payne can.
Posted Jan 15, 2024  Edit critic review
3/5
Ferrari (2023) Wenlei Ma Like the myriad elements of a car engine, it can work in symphony, and at other times, it stalls and sputters out.
Posted Jan 15, 2024  Edit critic review
3/5
The Boys in the Boat (2023) Wenlei Ma The Boys in the Boat is an old-fashioned and solid historical biography that ticks a lot of the right boxes. It’s not going to set tongues wagging but what it does do is tell an inspiring story with polish and a deftness befitting the genre.
Posted Jan 15, 2024  Edit critic review
3/5
Dream Scenario (2023) Wenlei Ma Dream Scenario is a peculiar and provocative film with more ideas than it knows what to do with.
Posted Jan 15, 2024  Edit critic review
4.5/5
Poor Things (2023) Wenlei Ma Poor Things is a fearless film and the world is better for having it in it.
Posted Dec 22, 2023  Edit critic review
2/5
Anyone But You (2023) Wenlei Ma Anyone But You's would-be-lovers don’t so much sizzle as fizzle.
Posted Dec 22, 2023  Edit critic review
4.5/5
Maestro (2023) Wenlei Ma Scenes have the snap, crackle and pop of an old-school movie, as if you were watching Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell or Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
Posted Dec 19, 2023  Edit critic review
3/5
Wonka (2023) Wenlei Ma It may have hijinks, tomfoolery and musical extravagance, but at its core, it’s as gooey as a marshmallow dipped in a chocolate fountain.
Posted Dec 19, 2023  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Leave the World Behind (2023) Wenlei Ma We’re not in control, but Sam Esmail is of his startling, character-driven doomsday story about what happens when there’s the very real possibility everything is about to end.
Posted Dec 19, 2023  Edit critic review
1.5/5
Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire (2023) Wenlei Ma Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire is a derivative space opera that indulges in Snyder’s worst maximalist impulses. It is a sensory assault, a punitive experience that can be summed up in one word: Loud.
Posted Dec 19, 2023  Edit critic review
3/5
Napoleon (2023) Wenlei Ma Those battle sequences are breathtaking – a marvel of craft and filmmaking that elevates Napoleon and saves it from being relegated to the discards pile of cinema history.
Posted Nov 23, 2023  Edit critic review
3/5
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) Wenlei Ma It’s not perfect but it does enough to add more texture to the Hunger Games universe.
Posted Nov 15, 2023  Edit critic review
3/5
Saltburn (2023) Wenlei Ma Saltburn is visually spectacular, thematically ambitious and features some of the most visceral, jaw-dropping scenes in cinema this year. But it lacks a cohesive throughline.
Posted Nov 15, 2023  Edit critic review
3/5
The Marvels (2023) Wenlei Ma There are soaring highs fighting to break out from an overall cluttered movie with a sloppy plot that you’ll struggle to care about. But what does work, works incredibly well.
Posted Nov 08, 2023  Edit critic review
3/5
Fingernails (2023) Wenlei Ma It’s an interesting premise, the performances are strong and it’s a tight, disciplined story that doesn’t tangent off. But it can feel a little cold even though the always wonderful Jessie Buckley has good chemistry with Riz Ahmed.
Posted Nov 06, 2023  Edit critic review
3/5
Sly (2023) Wenlei Ma It’s more of a comfort watch, an American underdog story, than a warts-and-all expose.
Posted Nov 06, 2023  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Dumb Money (2023) Wenlei Ma Dumb Money is relatively restrained for such a wild story, but it’s an engrossing one all the same.
Posted Oct 26, 2023  Edit critic review
3.5/5
The Killer (2023) Wenlei Ma The Killer is mesmerising in its own way. It imprisons you in the mind of an amoral assassin and lulls you into believing the ethics of murder is neither here nor there, all that matters is effectiveness.
Posted Oct 26, 2023  Edit critic review
3.5/5
ONEFOUR: Against All Odds (2023) Wenlei Ma Onefour: Against All Odds is a Netflix documentary that charts the course of the specific tussle between a rap group and the cops, but what it represents is the larger story between who gets to police art. It is enraging viewing.
Posted Oct 26, 2023  Edit critic review
4/5
Milli Vanilli (2023) Wenlei Ma Luke Korem persuasively makes the argument that there was much more going on than two opportunists who saw their way out and took it — and became vilified for their deception.
Posted Oct 24, 2023  Edit critic review
3.5/5
The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) Wenlei Ma The Pigeon Tunnel is a probing film, one which interrogates Le Carre about his childhood and early years, drawing a line between his experiences and his characters.
Posted Oct 24, 2023  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Pain Hustlers (2023) Wenlei Ma The film takes no creative risks while leaning into all the cliches. There’s just nothing new here.
Posted Oct 24, 2023  Edit critic review
4/5
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) Wenlei Ma The wizardry in Killers of the Flower Moon is in the moments and spaces in between the main plot points.
Posted Oct 14, 2023  Edit critic review
Prev Next