Cosmopolis was number 1 on the top 10 overlooked films of 2012 for the London Film Review. Their Review is linked also.
http://www.thelondonfilmreview.com/film-review/top-10-overlooked-films -of-2012/?pid=12
*Posted by Priorygardens on the RP board.
A movie vs. book review of sorts. The book part is at the link:
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
Movie Review: WOW!!! They did not hold anything back with this movie. It was a VERY accurate representation of the book. Now...I realize I am extremely biased when it comes to anything involving Rob Pattinson, but this movie was VERY well done. 
First of all, they couldn't have selected a better person to play Eric Packer. Rob had the look and executed the part to perfection. He was smart, arrogant, disturbed, irrational...everything I envision when reading about Eric.
The scenes were as outrageous as I had perceived them to be, but they were much easier to follow on the big screen. Without the inner dialogue all of the confusion was eliminated. While this wasn't one of my favorite books by any means, I would definitely recommend reading it prior to watching the movie. My husband had a number of questions while watching the movie, which only someone who had read the book would have been able to answer.Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and found it to be infinitely better than the book, which is rarely the case with a book to movie.
http://jacquesbooknook.blogspot.com/2013/02/cosmopolis-by-don-delillo. html?showComment=1362058256511
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Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg) [107.5 points / 10 votes]
"In the year of “Big Data” and Nate Silver, the film that speaks most strongly to today’s world is one that exists in a completely artificial one -- David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, a work as radical as anything he’s made since Videodrome, and in many ways that film’s inverse. A rip-roaring comedy about the psychology of data and capitalism, Cosmopolis takes us through the journey of a billionaire whose belief in digital patterns is questioned when he is unable to comprehend a disastrous fall in the yuan.
In Cronenberg’s world, digital life is a cracking façade: monotone dialogue pops like a screwball comedy, the limousine slowly deteriorates into a piece of junk, and our protagonist’s body physically corrodes in the most absurd of ways.
Cronenberg’s control of each facet of his film is pristinely precise. The performances by its marvelous cast work through the extremely complicated dialogue without ever once flinching (most notably the bravura performances by Robert Pattison and Sarah Gadon). And Cronenberg emphasizes the artificial in every frame while slowly allowing glimpses of creeping humanity like little pinpricks.
Edited and shot with razor-sharp skill, Cronenberg’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel might seem like the film the Occupy Wall Street movement has been waiting for, but it’s more of an attack on our constant investment in the signs, symbols and patterns of digital life today. Two characters realize they both have asymmetrical prostates, and one demands to know its meaning; the response: “Nothing... a harmless variation.” The most unsettling thing in Cronenberg’s vision of the future is realizing that not everything can fit neatly into models."
http://murielcommunity.blogspot.com/2013/02/2012-film-of-year-countdow n-12.html
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"Cosmopolis," directed by David Cronenberg, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival this spring to mixed response, and has since divided critics -- the film notched a 64% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie, adapted from Don DeLillo's novel of the same name, stars Pattinson as a young billionaire who begins to lose his mind when his business loses an immense amount of money over the course of a day.
The $19-million production arguably received more publicity than other films of its size due to the recent headlines involving Pattinson. The 26-year-old actor's face has been plastered all over tabloid covers since July, when photos surfaced of his "Twilight" co-star and girlfriend Kristen Stewart cheating on him with a 41-year-old director. Last week, Pattinson emerged for the first time since the scandal because he had promotional duties for "Cosmopolis," including an interview with The Times.
10/10
http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f4/t001888.html
Cronenberg has a history of getting career best performances out of his lead actors - think James Woods in Videodrome, Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone, Jeff Goldblum in The Fly et al - and Robert Pattinson is no exception.
Pattinson is excellent as our protagonist, Eric Packer. (...) So it is with Pattinson - his self loathing, disenfranchised schtick meshes effortlessly with Cronenberg's trademark austerity. Pattinson and Cronenberg are just a great fit. In any case, it's difficult to see prior contender, Colin Farrell, being better than this.
Cosmopolis was on many TOP 10 lists in 2012. Here is a link to the Cosmopolis Fan site
that has a compilation of all the lists (with links to each critic site).
http://cosmopolisfilm.com/2013/01/01/cosmopolis-is-making-a-statement-compilation-of-the-best-of-2012-lists/
Compulsory Internet Presence: 10th out of 10 – “A grand, weird, bold effort even by Cronenberg’s standards, this film is an absolutely mesmerizing adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel. I could speak here about how timely the film is with its unsparing critique of capitalist society. Or how Robert Pattinson delivers an astonishingly assured performance that hopefully portends a career full of them. Or how the score – a collaboration between Howard Shore and the band Metric – sustains and enhances the general mood of dread hanging over the entire film.
But really, perhaps the best thing about this film is how it feels like the work of a completely vibrant, reinvigorated filmmaker. I was not at all expecting a film this vital and meticulously crafted on the heels of his most recent effort – 2010’s A Dangerous Method - but here we are with what might be Cronenberg’s strongest and most unique effort since 1996’s Crash. I want to shout it from the rooftops. This film is a treasure.”
JenF ‏@MediaSageJen
Congrats to Cronenberg and Pattinson on the excellent review in Rolling Stone #Cosmopolis
nictate ‏@nictate
COSMOPOLIS: Best screenplay of the year. A pretty damn good movie too. Pattinson really pulled it off. Cronenberg knocked it out of the park
Sam Zimmerman ‏@samdzimmerman
Greatly dug COSMOPOLIS! A rough, absurdist look at an absurd climate. Excited to see again and dig
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CITY CONNECT Film Review: Cosmopolis, By Eric Wood
Even the characters themselves come across as artificial beings. Robert Pattinson gives the best performance of his career as the mega rich Eric Packer. For want of a better analogy, Pattinson turns Packer into this vamperic character, who doesn’t react to anything that happens around him. He’s completely cut off emotionally, as are the rest of the characters. But in the case of Pattinson’s performance, it is more highlighting the soullessness of people who benefit the most from capitalism.
Many people have criticized the film for not being emotionally engaging, but on the whole it does seem the point of Cronenberg’s film. He doesn’t want you to empathize with Packer, he wants you to see what the world is like around him, and try and figure out how it all connects to his own path of self-destruction.
It is a superbly slick and stylish film, with a great cast led by the superb Robert Pattinson, and a truly unique script. Cronenberg tackles the difficult questions about capitalism, and with great intelligence and originality, leaves the audience with just enough room to try and figure out what is going on for themselves. In my opinion, the best film of 2012 so far.
Joseph McDonagh @JoeMcDonaghFilm
I love that after spending most of Cosmopolis cruising around in a limo, Robert Pattinson is a limo driver in the next Cronenberg film.
James Blake Ewing @cinemasights
The other day I was marveling in my mind about how superb COSMOPOLIS is. Might be my favorite Cronenberg after eXistenZ.
Russell Hainline @RussellHFilm
Hey, I took part in this David Cronenberg retrospective. Guess which movie I raved about? Hint: Robert Pattinson.
http://moviemezzanine.com/examining-the-career-of-david-cronenberg/
Cosmopolis (2012):
“Imagine paint being splattered onto a canvas. Can the artist predict precisely what his piece will look like? He could control the movement of his arm, the position of the brush in his hand, the colors of paint he wields… but will he see every drop’s placement, every splatter’s shape and formation before it becomes reality? Perhaps he could devise a formula, but think of the variables: air movement, temperature, surface tension, the various speeds and angles of the arm, the brush handle, the hairs holding the paint, the paint as it separates from the brush, and the endless other variables one could imagine if you dove head first into it.
Cosmopolis, appropriately, begins with opening credits laced with such Pollockesque splashes. It’s a film about the variables, our desire to control life with the perfection of a machine without losing the emotion and feeling of humanity. Such a desire is a lost cause. You can no better predict a human life or the economy of a major superpower than you can the patterns of paint hitting the canvas.
Cronenberg’s icy and stylish approach compliments his adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel, and his ensemble of brilliant actors, led by Robert Pattinson in the role of a lifetime, expertly navigates the novelistic, philosophical dialogue without missing a beat. It’s tense, ambitious, and soulful. I hope Cronenberg, DeLillo, and Pattinson join forces again; in Cosmopolis, every splash of paint, every moment, a mini-masterpiece.”
–Russell Hainline (Movie Mezzanine)
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http://www.screened.com/cosmopolis/16-203819/staff-review/
It’s that moment that kicks off the last leg of the film, which veers deep into destruction and desolation so resolute that I won’t begin to try to enumerate its facets here. But it is terrifying, not only for how real and of-the-moment it feels but in how much Pattinson invests in the role.
This is the kind of role that demands a range that only a great actor working with a great director can pull off, and every eye rolling critic of Pattinson’s more famous works is going to have to reassess after this as his fanbase recoils in horror to see their icon throw himself into the deep end of the most negative human experiences. Here is someone, frequently dismissed, giving what I feel is easily the best performance of the year.
Amy Taubin writing on Cannes in FILM COMMENT:
"...Having forsworn the rush to hyperbolic judgment that all but overwhelms the experience of the movies themselves at Cannes, I fell into the trap when I snapped in response to a critic loudly proclaiming David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis a bore: “It’s a masterpiece.”
Since no respectable critic would make such a claim after only one viewing, and aching to see it again, I blew off the closing night festival movies...and went to the dank local multiplex where Cosmopolis had already opened. It was even better the second time around."
See her full comments on the journals's website:
www.filmcomment.com/article/festivals-cannes-2012-amy-taubin