There’s something missing that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s a little too long and the story doesn’t feel particularly balanced. But there’s something else – something that doesn’t quite give the movie the gut-punch it needs.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 16, 2022

Chante Adams' excellent performance would be the reason to even consider seeing this.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 20, 2022

Its a bit of a shock, considering Washingtons track record of directing strong, dynamic stories (Antwone Fisher, The Great Debaters and, most importantly, Fences), that he would make a movie this bland and lifeless.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 13, 2022

A Journal for Jordan boasts a lot of talent behind and in front of the camera, but it never catches fire dramatically.

| Jan 28, 2022

In its smaller moments, the film manages to capture some resonant emotions both in the love story and depictions of parenthood and grief.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 27, 2022

Adams is a vivacious screen presence with a twinkle in her eye, and Jordan can't quite match her, unable to draw out any real inner turmoil in a character who is respectable to a fault.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 23, 2022

A so-so old-fashioned military romance directed with sincerity but little curiosity by the noted actor Denzel Washington.

| Original Score: C | Jan 22, 2022

High expectations for this Michael B Jordan movie but the delivery was a little low.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 21, 2022

Jordan and Adams are good together, but struggle with the heaviness of the saccharin dialogue, and A Journal For Jordan plays it safe on the politics too.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 21, 2022

Both charismatic leads do a fine job in the circumstances, but as the film flits back and forth in time, some of the dialogue is laughably feeble.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 21, 2022

A languidly paced, fatally earnest, 130-minute romantic drama that extols the virtues of duty, sacrifice and unthinking patriotism.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 21, 2022

The chemistry between Jordan and Adams never gels (Charles appears slightly annoyed by Dana throughout), and there are a plethora of superfluous scenes that simply die on camera.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 21, 2022

A Journal For Jordan is probably better suited to the page than the screen.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 20, 2022

Visually, the style is basic. Under the surface the movie has complexity enough to handle a story whose timeline - a zigzag of points between 1998 and 2018 - is just one potential tangle.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 20, 2022

Uninspired and ultimately forgettable.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 19, 2022

The romance feels drawn out for a feature that runs for over 2 hours. There's little drama or suspense to the proceedings. Moreover, it seems ambiguous as to its message about war.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 19, 2022

Director Denzel Washington and his stars do their best with this bland, shallow and awkwardly structured film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 19, 2022

The film drags in spots and yet fails to linger on what the audience was waiting for--eye candy. This ultimately is empty calories.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 16, 2022

It's well told, tidy, and laudable.

| Jan 7, 2022

With little regard from deploying much in the way of stylistic showmanship, director Denzel Washington seems far more content in turning this memoir into, simply, a movie.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 6, 2022