Genius ends up being terrifically boring, while enthusiastically reproducing the creative hierarchies of the time it portrays.

| Aug 25, 2016

The biographical Genius is uneven, and that imbalanced focus-the same thing that novelist Thomas Wolfe needed help with all those years ago-is its weakest element.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 1, 2016

Documenting the inner life of creative artists and their world is challenging at best... 'Genius' manages to capture the grandiose dreams of both infamous writer, Wolfe, and his long-fabled editor...

| Jul 11, 2016

I wouldn't call Genius inspired, but not for nothing it inspired me to pick up Look Homeward, Angel for the first time.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 23, 2016

Not nearly as smart as it should be.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 17, 2016

"Genius" deals with the creative ego, its trappings and the need everyone has for an editor.

| Original Score: B- | Jun 17, 2016

Well-written, gorgeously shot, and expertly edited, the film is also an exasperating exercise in good intentions gone wrong.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 17, 2016

Perhaps the best advertisement for Genius -- not only did it make me want to revisit Berg's book, it had me lining up the Wolfe, Fitzgerald and Hemingway on the e-book runway.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 16, 2016

Firth and Law falter with their characters' awkward bromance: the former a fatherly cipher (will he ever take off that fedora?); the latter a clatter of drunken scribe clichs.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 16, 2016

An intriguing study of the personalities and torturous process behind some of the early 20th century's great writing.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 16, 2016

Those interested in Wolfe and his enduring legacy would be better off reading one of his novels than seeing this film.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 16, 2016

Good editors strive to make themselves invisible, which is what makes this affectionate biopic of Maxwell Perkins-who guided Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe into print-such an odd surprise.

| Jun 16, 2016

It's not bad, Genius, but it could have been great, and that's the disappointment.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 16, 2016

If you squint, you can see the thoughtful prestige drama that screenwriter John Logan and director Michael Grandage were trying to make, but it's lost in a thicket of stereotypes and metaphors.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 16, 2016

It's only outside the workplace, on the streets of New York ca. 1929 or paying a visit to a small blues bar for an impromptu rendition of "Flow Gently Sweet Afton," that the film comes to life.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 16, 2016

The film has its fascinating moments. The performances aren't really among them.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 16, 2016

It makes for half-baked drama.

| Jun 16, 2016

While Firth does a fine and honorable job interpreting Perkins, it's a tight performance with very, very few offhanded moments. Meantime Law gives it his all, acting up a storm, going whole hog with Wolfe's Carolina dialect.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 16, 2016

The film struggles mightily to dramatize the work of reading, writing, and editing, with loud scratches of red pencil on paper.

| Jun 14, 2016

This is something that rhymes with 'blatant Shmoscarbait,' pure and simple, and it will get worse before it gets better.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 14, 2016