Allison Shoemaker

Select another critic »
Consequence, RogerEbert.com
For 67 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 58% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 40% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Allison Shoemaker's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 What the Constitution Means to Me
Lowest review score: 16 Fifty Shades Darker
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 44 out of 67
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 67
  3. Negative: 7 out of 67
67 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Allison Shoemaker
    The Call of the Wild
    It is neither disaster nor dream, landing firmly somewhere in the disappointing middle.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    In the Heart of the Sea
    Unfortunately, the reverence Howard and screenwriter Charles Leavitt seem to feel for the material ultimately dooms it to—if you’ll pardon the seafaring reference—float along in the doldrums, doomed to a driftless existence enlivened only by the occasional giant whale.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    Peppermint
    It’s a shame, because Garner’s herculean efforts throw the film’s sloppiness into even sharper relief. Like Keanu Reeves, Garner has a gift for making every kick, punch, bullet, and desk dropped on someone’s head feel like a spontaneous decision.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    Me Before You
    It’s all too calculated to really have an impact, to grant audiences an honest chance for catharsis.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    The Girl in the Spider's Web
    Because it’s Claire Foy’s turn, The Girl in the Spider’s Web cannot honestly be called a colossal waste of time. It’s merely a moderate waste.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
    Where the sequel falters is where its uneven predecessor, which is both less ambitious and undeniably funnier, excels: its ostensible villains just aren’t very interesting.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    Serenity
    Serenity is often stylish. It is never, ever dull. It is also deeply stupid.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
    Good actors can’t make up for narrative inconsistency. Beasts can’t erase the frustration of seeing characters you love behave in ways that make no sense. One can forgive retconning backstory where it doesn’t belong if it feels true to the fictional world you love. That doesn’t happen here.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
    It’s visually sumptuous, a heady blend of Burton’s usual broken-doll aesthetic and some seriously impressive visual effects. And most importantly, while long, it’s rarely boring. The bad: It simply doesn’t add up to much.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 42 Allison Shoemaker
    The Girl on the Train
    The film’s flaws aside (those will come later), Blunt’s performance is a hell of a thing, wholly lacking in vanity and brimming with honest, ugly feeling.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 33 Allison Shoemaker
    King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
    What we really get is a film made of utter nonsense that’s even less interested in its characters than it is in telling a story.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 33 Allison Shoemaker
    I Still Believe
    In attempting to tell the story of this young woman’s death — not her life, no time for that either — I Still Believe cheapens it.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 33 Allison Shoemaker
    Poms
    Together, Weaver and Keaton sometimes manage to tease out the movie inside the movie, the one drawn to the connections between death and joy, youthfulness and mortality.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 33 Allison Shoemaker
    Breaking News in Yuba County
    None of the curious friction of its story, nor in its cast, results in any sort of frisson of excitement, dread, or even shock. The best Yuba can inspire is indignation. You get all these folks together, Tate Taylor, and the end result is this?
    • 52 Metascore
    • 33 Allison Shoemaker
    Ghost in the Shell
    Ghost in the Shell is a visually arresting film, even occasionally an entertaining one, but profound it ain’t. That’s no crime, but dressed up as it is in the trappings of a much smarter film, its significant shortcomings stand out every bit as much as a pair of pert breasts on a supposedly utilitarian body.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 33 Allison Shoemaker
    Pacific Rim: Uprising
    Uprising plods around like the giant robots that occupy so much of its space, moving too quickly to let almost anything resonate emotionally, but not quickly enough to lend much of an adrenaline rush.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 33 Allison Shoemaker
    Lucy in the Sky
    The film has spent so much time telegraphing its own depth that it forgets to create any, and thus when that wig arrives, we have no reason to view it as anything other than ridiculous.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 33 Allison Shoemaker
    The 5th Wave
    Blakeson and screenwriters Susannah Grant, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner don’t seem to care much about telling the story. They’re just checking off the boxes.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 16 Allison Shoemaker
    Fifty Shades Darker
    Dull at best, damaging at worst, and not worth a moment of your time.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 16 Allison Shoemaker
    Fifty Shades Freed
    Give or take one excellent joke about the practical applications of handcuffs — delivered with expert awkwardness by Dakota Johnson, who remains the only moderately charming element of the trilogy — the film is as devoid of wit as it is of subtlety, and that combined absence, courtesy of screenwriter Niall Leonard, leads to some of its biggest unintentional laughs.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »