Alistair Ryder

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Looper, The Film Stage
For 106 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 33% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 64% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 4.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Alistair Ryder's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 61
Highest review score: 100 Sinners
Lowest review score: 10 The Electric State
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 46 out of 106
  2. Mixed: 55 out of 106
  3. Negative: 5 out of 106
106 movie reviews
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    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Alistair Ryder
    Remarkably Bright Creatures
    While I wasn't left completely cold by Remarkably Bright Creatures, I found its tried-and-tested clichés far more enjoyable than its wilder idiosyncrasies.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Alistair Ryder
    Mortal Kombat II
    The question remains whether a "Mortal Kombat" movie could ever be expected to be better than this, considering the limitations of the source material. That this sequel translates the simple beat-em-up thrills of the video game into something narratively functional is about as triumphant as it could possibly get for this franchise.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Alistair Ryder
    Scream 7
    If we're not poking fun at the inherent silliness of this, like a good "Scream" movie should, then all we're left with is a slasher too afraid to twist the knife.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Alistair Ryder
    Project Hail Mary
    As an existential sci-fi, Project Hail Mary doesn’t live up to the mid-2010s blockbusters it’s attempting to emulate, but it does eventually soar when it allows the hangout buddy comedy to take center stage. It’s a gorgeous feat of practical effects on a gargantuan scale, but its biggest pleasures lie in the most intimate character moments.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Alistair Ryder
    Hoppers
    If Pixar is now just as formulaic as its Hollywood animation peers, then director Daniel Chong's film is a reminder that a stereotypical crowd-pleaser from this studio is made with enough emotional sincerity and visual inspiration to never feel like cheap product fallen off the factory line.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Alistair Ryder
    Yellow Letters
    Yellow Letters‘ heart is ultimately in the right place, but good intentions alone can’t make for the rousing call-to-arms against creeping authoritarianism that Çatak and his co-writers hope. It feels effective in the moment, but becomes more hollow in retrospect for the lack of specificity in what it’s standing firmly against.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 40 Alistair Ryder
    The Strangers: Chapter 3
    Director Renny Harlin does his best to maintain the same level of slow-burning dread as he pulled off in the prior film, but it ends up feeling like a mundane, fly on the wall account of the average day at the office for the two surviving killers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Alistair Ryder
    Send Help
    It’s neither as funny as it needs to be nor as gross and gory as you’d hope Raimi’s first R-rated feature in more than two decades would prove, while still clearly salvaged by a talented filmmaker and two exceptional performers doing their best to elevate one-note, thinly sketched material.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Alistair Ryder
    The Rip
    It's perfectly serviceable, never less than watchable, but lacking in anything special that could live up to its twisty potential.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Alistair Ryder
    People We Meet on Vacation
    Yes, Gen Z absolutely deserves better than People We Meet on Vacation as their equivalent to When Harry Met Sally — but until a worthy successor comes along, this will make for a charming substitute.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Alistair Ryder
    Avatar: Fire and Ash
    The armies of visual effects teams at James Cameron's disposal struggle to hide the fact he's now on autopilot, expanding the world of Pandora without offering anything that feels particularly fresh. Even the set pieces failed to arouse much excitement.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Alistair Ryder
    100 Nights of Hero
    Running at a slim 92 minutes, 100 Nights of Hero was clearly never intending to match the sprawling scale of its literary inspiration––but that doesn’t absolve it of inefficiencies, modernizing its source in a way that’ll make you glad we still have the classics to hold onto.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Alistair Ryder
    Zootopia 2
    That "Zootopia 2" has anything that will linger in the imagination long after viewing already puts it a league above Disney's other cash-grab sequels, but it effortlessly clears that lowest of bars. It's not perfect, but even the parents dragged along by their kids will be happy to see a third movie — and by modern Disney standards, that is nothing short of miraculous.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Alistair Ryder
    The Running Man
    The most spectacular sequences here are when [Wright] allows himself to let loose, working towards his instincts rather than against them.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Alistair Ryder
    Predator: Badlands
    . The fact it all adds up to an enjoyable romp, albeit one that never feels as bold as its parts, is likely an encouraging sign that Dan Trachtenberg has attained a similar status to Phil Lord and Chris Miller a decade ago, taking pitches that sound disastrous and turning them into non-compromised crowd-pleasers against all the odds.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Alistair Ryder
    Left-Handed Girl
    Director Shih-Ching Tsou’s solo debut Left-Handed Girl is a simple but striking drama about growing up in a family living paycheck-to-paycheck.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Alistair Ryder
    The Woman in Cabin 10
    It speeds through the plot beats so fast, in fact, that it never properly allows you to take part in the murder mystery guessing game for yourself, barely developing its characters beyond the one note they're introduced on, so the question of a motive becomes an irrelevance to anybody watching.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Alistair Ryder
    Good Boy
    Transcending its gimmick status within its opening stretch and only growing more resonant from there, it becomes that rare horror film you could recommend to people who hate the genre — the set pieces are well constructed, but their impact pales next to a haunting, moving story about a dog and his owner. 
    • 28 Metascore
    • 60 Alistair Ryder
    The Strangers: Chapter 2
    While it doesn't offer anything you haven't seen in a slasher movie before, the pivot to survival thriller mode feels like a breath of fresh air after a tiresome prior installment with no unique ideas, and no suggestion of any impending change to the worn out formula.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Alistair Ryder
    The Long Walk
    Lawrence and screenwriter J.T. Mollner's take on "The Long Walk" is a reminder of why King's stories have historically been well-suited for the screen, replicating the blend of melancholy, coming-of-age character study, and fatalistic horror that defined the very best adaptations of his work.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 67 Alistair Ryder
    Magellan
    There’s much to like here, but I never felt I was seeing a fully-realized vision.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 42 Alistair Ryder
    Lurker
    The film doesn’t work as a thriller for this reason, stretching credulity in how it finds new ways to keep Matthew returning to the fold, and doesn’t succeed particularly well in critiquing the vapidness of modern fame.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Alistair Ryder
    Nobody 2
    This is the only genre where you can paper over the flaws with a handful of well-staged set pieces, and thanks to Timo Tjahjanto, it manages to upstage the original on that front.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 67 Alistair Ryder
    Weapons
    It’s an entertaining film, but not a particularly resonant one considering the charged subject matter; it’s structured like a parlor trick, keeping one at a deliberate remove until working out how its constituent pieces fit together rather than caring about the people within them.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Alistair Ryder
    The Pickup
    The vastly overqualified cast stubbornly refuses to phone it in, with their high-wattage charisma acting as the ultimate special effect; their banter is entertaining enough to help distract from just how cheap everything else onscreen looks.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Alistair Ryder
    Jurassic World Rebirth
    Gareth Edwards does occasionally lean into the full-blooded horror potential of this material.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Alistair Ryder
    Predator: Killer of Killers
    If you've found the previous live-action Predator movies (including Trachtenberg's own franchise-reviving "Prey") to be too heavy on plot at the expense of the carnage, then the brevity of this spin-off is exactly what you'll have been wanting, stripping down the formula to its barest essentials across three brief stories.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Alistair Ryder
    Karate Kid: Legends
    When Karate Kid: Legends is allowed to be its own, stand-alone adventure, it's by far the most charming since the 1984 original.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Alistair Ryder
    Fountain of Youth
    For a director whose recent work output suggests he moves straight onto the next project the second he calls cut on the last, it's surprising how much of Fountain of Youth feels reshot in post.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Alistair Ryder
    Bring Her Back
    The wildly ambitious sophomore effort Bring Her Back gradually reveals itself to be a direct statement on the cheap exploitation of grief, channeling the existential nihilism of French New Extremity works like Martyrs to explore just how unhealthy it is to process death at such a surface level. That it’s also one of the most distressing, anxiety-inducing horror films of recent memory when taken at face value is just a bonus.
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