Review Round-Up For 'Mr. Brooks'
By Rachel
June 3, 2007 - 11:41 PMMr. Brooks, starring CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's Marg Helgenberger (Catherine Willows) has earned both praise and criticism from reviewers.
John Anderson from Variety described Mr. Brooks as an "attention-grabber" and said that "[Kevin] Costner delivers a complex cocktail of aloofness, insecurity and reluctant threat, which makes a novel script into something even more unusual."
Mr. Brooks only received two out of four stars from Chicago Tribune entertainment reporter Mark Caro. "If you broke down Mr. Brooks in terms of structure, twists and momentum, you might give it high marks," he said in his review. "The thing does move. To where is the problem." Caro described Mr. Brooks as "a serial killer movie in the dime-a-dozen era of serial killer movies, with the selling point being that the murderer is played by a movie star."
In his review of the movie for New York Times, Stephen Holden describes Mr. Brooks as a "preposterous character":
Mr. Brooks, alas, is not a comedy. A werewolf movie masquerading as a thriller, it looks like a canny attempt by Bruce A. Evans, its director and screenwriter (with Raynold Gideon), to establish a Saw-like franchise using the names of fading ’80s stars to lend the project a semblance of respectability. If it is not as sadistic as the Saw and Hostel movies, it is as malignant in its insistence on the omnipresence of evil.
Kevin Crust from the Los Angeles Times said that Costner was "effective" as a character but that the plot of Mr. Brooks is not credible: "[Bruce A.] Evans and [Raynold] Gideon never really succeed in selling the idea that serial killing is a disease — which would require a degree of realism that the slick, over-plotted Mr. Brooks doesn't otherwise aspire to. They seem to be content with occupying the audience with a series of twists and jolts." Crust also said that "anything that steals focus from the existential patter between Earl and Marshall [William Hurt] weakens the movie."
Mr. Brooks earned a C grade from Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman:
Mr. Brooks begins promisingly, but it grows steadily more preposterous as it goes along, becoming the first feel-good serial-killer movie. Dane Cook, still trapped in his innocuous comedy rhythms, turns up as a disturbed young man who has photographed (through a convenient open window shade) Brooks' latest handgun execution. He tries to blackmail the killer into taking him on his next ''outing,'' but their relationship converts the movie, in essence, into a far-fetched buddy film.
Amy Biancolli from the Houston Chronicle said that "the fun of Mr. Brooks isn't found in the killing, although there's plenty of that. It's the delicious tête-à-têtes between the lead and his wisenheimer imaginary playmate, Marshall, an alter ego whose scornful form emerges from the shadows like a Cheshire cat."
You can check out the official site for Mr. Brooks here.
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