Taylor Swift showed up as a piano-playing hologram with a bad wig and it officially became a comedy.

| Aug 13, 2021

Noyce tries to thread the needle by hewing close to his source material while peppering in some grander-scale sci-fi business to keep things moving. It doesn't remotely work.

| Sep 22, 2016

The fatal irony at the heart of The Giver is too hilariously blatant to ignore: here is a dystopian teen drama about the perils of sameness that feels exactly like all of the other movies in its increasingly crowded genre.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 27, 2014

It's an intelligent, accomplished, unpadded thriller, and one suitable for the children.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 22, 2014

It just looks like a low-rent mishmash of Divergentand The Hunger Games, recycling riffs from Logan's Run with sets and costumes lifted from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 21, 2014

The Giver is a solid, soft sci-fi entertainment with plenty of talented folks attached.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 20, 2014

Robert B Weide of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame co-wrote the screenplay but, sadly, none of the debunking wit of that series is found in this solemn, sappy fable.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 19, 2014

It makes for one of this overcrowded field's stronger entries, refusing to redact entirely the baby-slaying weirdness that permits Lois Lowry's source novel its multiplicity of grown-up readings ...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 18, 2014

While Thwaites has visual appeal, he struggles to give us the layered, conflicted hero this film needs. Without it, The Giver is little more than stylish but saccharine entertainment for teens.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 18, 2014

The allegorical framework starts to look contrived, and things feel far too rushed and glib after an involving start.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 12, 2014

The problems show up during the climactic action sequences. Logic is jettisoned and once that happens, the basic flaws in the whole scenario become all too obvious.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 10, 2014

This might be an anti-pharmaceutical, anti-cult, anti-plot, anti-suspense allegory. It could also just be Thanksgiving at your robot-zombie in-laws.

| Aug 21, 2014

For much of the movie, viewers will be asking themselves where the conflict is. And, by extension, the drama.

Full Review | Aug 18, 2014

The Giver is more simple and raw than the rest of today's teen dystopias that try to cram in unnecessary backstory and love triangles.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 15, 2014

As Jonas, Brenton Thwaites brings thoughtful wonder to the role of a young man who is thrilled and frightened by what he learns.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 15, 2014

In 'The Giver' the only actor allowed to dig into his role is Jeff Bridges, as the title character who is in charge of holding and caring for mankind's memories.

| Original Score: 2.00 | Aug 15, 2014

The movie never really sheds its chilly Orwellian vibe, and its chief idea -- that only The Giver and Jonas can truly feel -- is contradicted by the supposedly blanked-out citizens who, in fact, appear to have feelings indeed, albeit nasty ones.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 15, 2014

There's enough that's fundamentally good in the meat of film not to wholly reject what The Giver is giving us.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2014

Lois Lowry took chances with her novel. The movie of The Giver takes none. It's safe, sorry and a crashing bore.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 15, 2014

A movie that plays like a low-rent Logan's Run crossed with a UNICEF commercial.

| Aug 15, 2014