Wonder Boys (DVD) > Reviews

Advantages: Good story, engaging dialogue
Disadvantages: not many features on DVD

Michael Douglas, Toby Maguire and Robert Downey Jr are the leading lights in this very watchable intelligent ‘mellow drama’ about writers, education, love and a dead dog. Bought the DVD because there wasn’t much else on the shelves at Blockbuster that evening. For the technically minded (and obsessed) the format is 16:9 and has little else but the movie and a scene selector to keep the trigger happy ….happy. To the movie, ... Read review

Advantages: Good, solid drama
Disadvantages: Not a very exciting DVD and the film is guilty of being a little slow in places

...Confidential had become a hit. Wonder Boys was completed at the start of 1999 but the finished product then became a victim of botched marketing and was a box office flop when it was released in the States in February 2000. This failure caused the Britsh release date to be pushed back to November 2000 whereupon the film again suffered from a lack of advertising. The film has since been re-released in the States but it appears your best chance of catching ... Read review

Advantages: Great acting and brilliant humour
Disadvantages: Not a great plot line

This film ws released in the US box office twice, and did disastrously twice, but is it that bad? No, is the answer to that because it's one of the better films I've seen this year. Funny, clever and in parts slightly disturbing this film is well-above average. Michael Douglas stars as the lead character Grady Tripp, a middle-aged English Professor. He once wrote a book called The Arsonist's Daughter which was critically acclaimed but that was ... Read review

Advantages: Comical, interesting and enjoyable.
Disadvantages: Loose ends intentionally left at end of film may leave some viewers feeling slightly cheated.

...very funny light relief. In all, Wonder Boys is a film that is hard to summarise. The film starts and ends with loose ends that are never intended to be completely tied up. This is an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. It's not the most cheerful of films but it not going to depress you either. The Cast: Michael Douglas - plays the writer and college lecturer who is struggling to finish writing his next novel (after the critical ... Read review

Advantages: Some good performances. Handful of laughs. Downey and Maguire.
Disadvantages: Boring at times. Feels it wants to be zany but instead tries for too much sentiment. Bad ending.

...crazy. Trip is a once wonder boy writer who hasn't fininshed his follow up novel to his first major hit. His gay editor (played excellenty by the tragic Robert Downey Jr) arrives to see the book and attend the university's annual 'WordFest' competition for writers. Just at the same time that his wife leaves him and his girlfriend, his bosses wife, tells him she's pregnant. Trip teaches at the university a young depressed/deep writer James ... Read review