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78Despite a third-act tendency to gather a few spare genre clichés as it rolls along (Guns! Drugs! Angry siblings!), Robinson's film is a cut above the rest.
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75What I liked most was its unforced, genuine affection for its characters.
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75Buoyed by a superlative soundtrack, ATL plays a familiar song about growing up, but hits notes that sound brand new.
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75Fresh and unexpected. It feels like a real window on the lives of disenfranchised youths - these are in South Atlanta - as they make their way in a society that doesn't cut them any breaks.
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The film mostly avoids easy laughs or simplistic characters, reminding you how few black movies claim the huge middle ground between chardonnay-sipping buppies and hardened criminals.
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75An emotionally charged coming-of-age saga that will make you laugh and cry, maybe at the same time.
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75The story is familiar, but terrific performances and a vivid sense of place elevate it above the average teen-oriented picture.
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75Robinson has assembled an impressive young cast comprised primarily of rappers (such as Tip Harris, a.k.a. T.I.) and fresh faces (newcomer Lauren London).
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It's entertainment with ambition, but I can't front though; the soundtrack is pretty fly too.
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70Notwithstanding the melodrama and the often ham-handed directing, ATL somehow works. A large part of this is thanks to Robinson's skill in evoking the hickory-smoked flavor of the ATL.
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67The more rink time, the better: As directed by hip-hop music-video king Chris Robinson from a story by "Antwone Fisher's" Antwone Fisher, the skate scenes are a blast.
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67Robinson makes these characters breathe, and they bring the film to life.
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67Unlike so many movies directed at teens, ATL is not interested in exploiting its audience.
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63If "Roll Bounce" and "Boyz n the Hood" fell in love and had a PG-13 baby, it would be ATL.
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63Working from a story by Antwone Fisher, screenwriter Tina Gordon Chism is tender toward characters balancing where they come from with where they'd like to go. Fisher was the subject of an inspirational biography by Denzel Washington.
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63Is ATL even a hip-hop movie? There's hip-hop in it, certainly, but unlike the recent vehicles for Eminem and 50 Cent -- respectively, ''8 Mile" and ''Get Rich or Die Tryin' " -- it does not have a rapper hero.
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60Several good ideas for a movie rumble around inside ATL, but they never coalesce.
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60House definitely put a smile on an insider's face, but outsiders can enjoy the ATL too. The only prerequisite here is the ability to laugh.
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60What starts out as a lively reconsidering of the thug-life mentality ends up having as much depth as, well, one of Robinson's videos.
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The fun here is in seeing a new batch of rappers try acting, and some of them turn out to be eminently watchable.
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60Higher on stylistic dazzle than originality or coherence.
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58Ultimately, ATL is the same old teenager angst in a mildly novel package.
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58Ultimately, the film could stand to be more inconsequential, because whenever anything happens to move the story along, it immediately loses its laid-back Southern charm.
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40The movie's first half hour is a barrage of lazy narrative pointers--endless expository voice-over, freeze frames and captions to identify the numerous characters--and by the time screenwriter Tina Gordon Chism decides to write an extended scene, the story is already dead in the water.
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38Director Chris Robinson moves his camera aimlessly, cutting in and out of speeches as if he were just as bored as I.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 19
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Mixed: 3 out of 19
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Negative: 4 out of 19
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Ciaira10
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BENT.10