December Boys: Critic Reviews

Daniel Radcliffe doesn't look uncomfortable, exactly, in December Boys, but he does look like a hot transfer student trying to fit in with local pipsqueaks a head shorter and two grades below him.

A coming-of-age tale so treacly it doesn't just tug your heartstrings, it attempts to glue them to your ribs.

There is no magic in Daniel Radcliffe's first non-Potter movie: it's an incredible clunker: naff, sentimental, like an episode of the treacly US TV show The Wonder Years.

Radcliffe is good at showing vulnerability but without the skills to give it gradation. The magic doesn't work for him this time.

Radcliffe is good at showing vulnerability but without the skills to give it gradation. The magic doesn't work for him this time.

The two halves of December Boys -- the pre-adolescent getting of wisdom and the adolescent getting of action -- never mesh.

While there's not much to the story, the gorgeous setting goes a long way.

There seem to be two movies going on here at the same time, and December Boys would have been better off going all the way with one of them.

Juvenile viewers may well benefit from the movie. But, for the adult, it's ultimately a film that arrives too early for the season in its title and too late in terms of style and impact.

Though familiar as an old shoe, this is straightforward and well told.

Visually well-mounted but narratively muddled.

[A] tasteful and gorgeously photographed coming-of-age story.

December Boys bathes in the summer sun and sea breezes even as it exudes the energy of youth and promise.

Enhanced by an exotic locale, the movie overcomes a well-trodden narrative path and unflinchingly brandishes its sentimentality as it stakes out its crowd-pleasing territory.

The coast of Australia is an apt setting for Rod Hardy's precious drama: It's Beaches for men.

Fans and industry watchers who wonder whether Radcliffe has what it takes to turn his increasingly sophisticated performances in [Harry Potter] into a full-blown adult career as an actor... can see for themselves: the kid's got talent...

Director Rod Hardy adds some whimsical touches to an otherwise cliche-filled story, but the young orphans never emerge as full-blooded characters.

Conflicted but well-acted.

I was not charmed. I was not moved.

Pleasant but pedestrian.

No reason to see it. No reason not to see it, either. Shrug.