Andy Klein

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Dallas Observer, New Times (L.A.), The A.V. Club, TNT RoughCut
For 255 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 4.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Andy Klein's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 61
Highest review score: 100 Bottle Rocket
Lowest review score: 0 8 ½ Women
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 126 out of 255
  2. Mixed: 96 out of 255
  3. Negative: 33 out of 255
255 movie reviews
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    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Kill Me Later
    Despite the generally likable characters and the abundance of clever ideas, Lustig mucks it all up with her "trick" editing.
    • 15 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
    There are lots of elements that make no sense whatever.
    • TNT RoughCut
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Harvard Man
    Toback has taken a distinctly '60s-ish personal experience and done his best to transplant it into the current, vastly different, cultural milieu. Harvard Man is a semi-throwback, a reminiscence without nostalgia or sentimentality.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Shadow of the Vampire
    In the end, the performances and the basic strength of the premise make Shadow of the Vampire a relatively diverting ninety minutes. But there is the inescapable feeling that it is a shadow of the great film it might have been.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Lake Placid
    The only genuine surprises on hand are the few moments when the film defies the expectations that have been programmed into our collective neurons by the past 25 years of horror movies.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Illuminata
    Unfocused. We feel cut adrift amid the various plot threads. This is exacerbated by some murky exposition. Characters, events, and the passage of time are not always clearly established.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    7 Days in September
    While it's crucial to preserve and make available every bit of available footage of such an earth-shattering event, it must be said that Rosenbaum's film manages to become slack and uninvolving after a while.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Les Destinées
    Les Destinées has a leisurely, contemplative pace without ever growing boring. Still, at the end, we are left somehow empty. For all the time we spend with these people, we never really get inside of them.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Titanic Town
    It's hard to know just how much to trust Titanic Town.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Someone Like You...
    The various talents on display aren't enough to overcome the sheer blandness of the material.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    The Trials of Henry Kissinger
    Two minor drawbacks: Onscreen IDs of speakers are sometimes omitted. And Kissinger's crimes seem almost paltry in comparison to current American policies.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    In This Tricky Life
    Silva is a polished and sophisticated director who brings a surprisingly light touch to much of this apparently fact-based story.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    The Road Home
    Sad to say, the story is simply too slight to sustain the film.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Hamlet
    Despite the few good performances, this Hamlet is not a keeper.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    The Emperor's New Groove
    Pretty hysterical.
    • TNT RoughCut
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Nurse Betty
    Worth watching.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Cotton Mary
    It's unlikely that anyone will walk away unmoved.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Biandan, guniang
    The texture is reminiscent of last year's "Suzhou River," but the basic material isn't as rich.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Thirteen Days
    The efficiency of his (Donaldson) direction renders the movie somewhat characterless, like a top-rank made-for-TV production.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Shadow Magic
    Hu has crafted a charming and modest movie.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Swiri
    Thankfully, the final, long action set piece, which owes a debt to "The Manchurian Candidate" among others, is free of such problems. Shiri manages to go out on its most exciting sequence. There are worse ways to go.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    The Horse Whisperer
    It's nothing more than a very long movie about someone, literally and metaphorically, having to get back up on a horse.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Dr T and the Women
    Belongs somewhere in the low middle of Altman's output -- not up to "Cookie's Fortune," but way better than, say, "Beyond Therapy," which remains his worst film by some margin.
    • TNT RoughCut
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Grateful Dawg
    With no aspects of the personalities represented outside of their music, Grateful Dawg ends up feeling dry and incomplete; its two subjects are stripped of all other characteristics and come across as not very interesting.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Cradle Will Rock
    In the end, it's all just too damned much. It's more exhausting than edifying.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Wendigo
    The problem with Wendigo, for all its effective moments, isn't really one of resources. At its heart, the story seems confused, as though the director has given it one too many twists.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Dahmer
    Star Jeremy Renner seems shorter than Dahmer, but is otherwise a look-alike and gives a convincingly intense and weird performance. Bruce Davison (as Papa Dahmer) and the rest of the cast also do nice work.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Kiss Me, Stupid (re-release)
    It just doesn¹t get very good until halfway through, in large part because the usually excellent Walston is miscast.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    The Gift
    In terms of cleverly hidden exposition, this ain't "The Sixth Sense."
    • TNT RoughCut
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    American History X
    Fails dramatically as well as ideologically.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Bait
    It more or less makes sense and it's not dull -- more than can be said for many similar attempts.
    • TNT RoughCut
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Lan Yu
    Filled with sharp observations and interesting, often subtle, bits of visual trickery, much of it evoking the technique of Douglas Sirk's American domestic melodramas. Still, the very simple story seems too simple and the working out of the plot almost arbitrary.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Scream 2
    Handily in a league with its predecessor...as good a follow-up as one can imagine, given the built-in difficulties of sequels.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Est - Ouest
    The film looks great, but Wargnier is so heavy-handed in his portrayal of postwar Russia that it casts suspicions on the film's reliability as history.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    The Best Man
    Lee's pace is slow enough to try viewers' patience.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Cube
    Cube is essentially a glossy, beautifully designed 90-minute Twilight Zone episode.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Mission: Impossible II
    Abandon all hopes of common sense, and enter the theater with high expectations for visceral entertainment. You won't be disappointed.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Legally Blonde
    The muddiness of the basic concept and the thinness of its execution eventually defeat even Witherspoon's talents.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Tuvalu
    It's always risky to characterize a new film as "unique," but Tuvalu, the debut feature from German director Veit Helmer, has as good a shot as any at claiming that label.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Kiss of the Dragon
    Will probably please hard-core action fans who have become inured to plot idiocies, but it remains a terrible waste of talent.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Master of the Flying Guillotine (re-release)
    It's refreshing and unusual to see clever strategy trumping ritual honor in a film of this genre, even if one of the tricks seems gratuitously brutal.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Hannibal
    More than just a disappointment. It is also a spoiler, possibly weakening the impact of "Silence" for its fans.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    The Big Kahuna
    It doesn't have enough power in the first place to make a strong claim on our attentions.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Bamboozled
    By the end, we simply have no idea what he (Lee) feels or what the film is really about. And we are too worn out to care.
    • TNT RoughCut
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    The Minus Man
    Doesn't show us much of anything we haven't seen better already.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    The Recruit
    But by the end the audience, along with Clayton, has been jerked around so many times that it's almost too exhausting...By then, it's almost impossible to care.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    The Legend of Bagger Vance
    Middlebrow art has its built-in pitfalls, not the least of them sentimentality and intellectual flabbiness -- both of which are in abundant supply in Bagger Vance.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
    The ludicrous casting of Hoffman is just the fatal bit of kindling on this Joan's fire.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    The Château
    An occasionally funny, but overall limp, fish-out-of-water story.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Music of the Heart
    So uplifting, it's almost...gross.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Tomorrow Never Dies
    Brosnan proved his worth last time around; but, sad to say, the rest of Tomorrow Never Dies lacks the wit and inventiveness of GoldenEye, let alone of Goldfinger.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    The Mothman Prophecies
    Enjoyable, if utterly stupid, upscale entry in the old Amityville Horror genre -- that is, a horror film allegedly based on spooky and inexplicable real-life events.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Possession
    The cold distance that LaBute brings to the material keeps the viewer at arms' length.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Haiku Tunnel
    After a few very funny early sequences, tricked up with grotesque, surreal editing and camerawork, the movie gets bogged down a bit during the first third.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Windtalkers
    The over-the-top sincerity that is so rewarding in "Face/Off" (1998), Woo's best American film, feels too clichéd in this more conventional context.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    The Transporter
    What's most disappointing is the almost utter lack of humor -- In the mindless action sweepstakes, however, there's still enough here to place The Transporter above big-bang gibberish like XXX.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 58 Andy Klein
    Champions
    Harrelson is enjoyable as always, and the rest of the cast delivers, but the film is too warm, fuzzy, predictable, and by the numbers to be anything more than a pleasant diversion that will vanish from your mind by the time you leave the multiplex.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Dreamcatcher
    Condensing, paring and shorthanding the story elements can be daunting, and, despite the efforts of Kasdan and Goldman, two masters at wrangling unwieldy source material into shape, there is some awkwardness and confusion in the result.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Green Dragon
    The film is often moving and explores the discomfort inherent in the contacts between the American "hosts" and their "guests," but its effect is diluted by slow pacing and lengthiness.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Lucky Break
    This is mostly well-constructed fluff, which is all it seems intended to be.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Borstal Boy
    While the movie tries to make the connection between the rough but sensitive lad we see on screen and the notorious carouser of later years, there's little here to suggest whatever torment led Behan to drunkenness and an absurdly early death at 41.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Brother
    While Brother may be the perfect introduction for Kitano newcomers, longtime fans may find it superfluous and even a step down from the likes of Hana-Bi (1997) and Sonatine (1993).
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    What to Do in Case of Fire
    Schnitzler's film has a great hook, some clever bits and well-drawn, if standard issue, characters, but is still only partly satisfying. The problem may very well be one of cultural translation.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Blade
    At best, second-rate pulp, hampered by excessive length, a thematically meandering screenplay, and a general lack of excitement.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Hey Arnold! The Movie
    Just barely diverting, even at under 80 minutes -- a TV episode inflated past its natural length.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Festival in Cannes
    Festival in Cannes is an amused indictment of Jaglom's own profession; he doesn't seem to be making excuses for anybody's compromised (or even downright immoral) behavior here.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Catfish in Black Bean Sauce
    It's sweet and well intentioned, with occasional amusing moments.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    All Over the Guy
    The redeeming features of All Over the Guy are the consistently engaging performances and some genuinely funny dialogue.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    The Kid
    This is quintessential "family entertainment."
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Bangkok Dangerous
    May display an energetic and promising talent, but it is also uncomfortably close to being a 105-minute music video, with all the problems that suggests.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Levity
    Nobody can convey more while doing nothing than Thornton. And while his minimalist style is appropriate for the ironically named Levity, what is conveyed never quite generates the emotional charge of "Monster's Ball."
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Plunkett & Macleane
    Its greatest flaw is the casting of Miller ("Trainspotting," "Hackers"), who continues to have virtually no screen presence...For all that, Plunkett & Macleane is fun.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Under Suspicion
    Ninety percent of this thriller is absolutely terrific; but the 10 percent that fails is so troubling that it threatens to undermine all that is wonderful in the rest.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 42 Andy Klein
    Maybe I Do
    Instead of gags, we’re treated to endless observations about love, commitment, romance, parental responsibilities, and other well-trod subjects. None of this is particularly insightful or interesting.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Next Friday
    All the new plot stuff is way old hat, as though straight from a textbook chapter called "Conflict Drives Your Narrative!" And at times the motivations are either unclear or senseless.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    The Hunted
    Jones seems to have trouble keeping up with the large amount of action he's required to participate in. And Del Toro seems ill-cast and ill-used.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Piñero
    What Ichaso does do is take us on a dizzying, constantly moving ride through an exciting decade in the blossoming of "Nuyorican" culture with its most flamboyant figure as our focus.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
    Fact is, there is nothing feloniously awful about the whole thing, but the laughs are tepid and too infrequent.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Bulletproof Monk
    It's pretty good fun, once it gets going, but still makes some of the same mistakes that have plagued other Hollywood films that interpolate the concepts of Hong Kong action.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    Mutant Aliens
    While the humor is recognizably Plympton, he has actually bothered to construct a real story this time, and the joke sequences are shorter and better integrated. The visual style is also richer and "better drawn" than before.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Andy Klein
    The Jungle Book 2
    It's perfectly effective, though only rarely inspired.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Flubber
    Williams is so unique that his presence automatically changes any project he stars in. Surprisingly, in this case, the change isn't particularly welcome.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Poolhall Junkies
    The result is by no means the embarrassment that many such offerings from unjustifiably vain actor-auteurs have been, but nor does it present much of anything new or compelling to demand one's attention.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    No Such Thing
    The underlying theme constantly changes shape, not in a way that seems rich in ambiguity, but in a way that seems poorly worked out.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Town & Country
    Nowhere near as bad as distributor New Line seems to think.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    The Last Man
    This use of narrative irony is in fact not just the central joke; it's the only joke. And as a result, the movie slightly overstays its welcome.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Black Knight
    Goes by relatively swiftly and painlessly, despite the completely ragtag nature of its construction, but there is not an inspired moment in it.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    The Art of War
    A mostly well-constructed action flick with a number of flashy, well-choreographed fight and chase scenes.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    American Adobo
    The film is reasonably entertaining, though it begins to drag two-thirds through, when the melodramatic aspects start to overtake the comedy.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Never Again
    This is not exactly original, but Schaeffer and his cast manage to make it tolerable.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 26 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Pavilion of Women
    Has an awkwardness that defeats whatever emotional involvement it tries to achieve.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Get Carter
    Kay doesn't seem to know the meaning of moderation.
    • TNT RoughCut
    • 23 Metascore
    • 60 Andy Klein
    Beautiful
    Generally engaging.
    • TNT RoughCut
    • 19 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
    The plot can be really tough to follow, in part because Banderas' accent, rarely a problem in recent years, is surprisingly hard to understand at crucial moments, and partly because it's tough to keep track of just who's working for whom...and why...and even where.
    • New Times (L.A.)
    • 14 Metascore
    • 40 Andy Klein
    Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
    On the up side, there are some genuinely funny jokes, and Oedekerk has been wise enough to keep the running time down to 82 minutes, including the eight-minute closing credit sequence (which is worth staying through its entirety). But Kung Pow! is no "What's Up, Tiger Lily?"
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