Betsy Sharkey

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Los Angeles Times
For 635 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1 point lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Betsy Sharkey's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Prisoners
Lowest review score: 0 Nothing Left to Fear
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 342 out of 635
  2. Mixed: 255 out of 635
  3. Negative: 38 out of 635
635 movie reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    I'll See You in My Dreams
    Director Brett Haley, who co-wrote the film with Marc Basch, has managed to create a film about those final years that gets to the heart of things like loss and love without patronizing or parody. No small thing to create a movie whose cast is mostly in their 70s yet whose story is so relatable whatever your age.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story
    From the beginning, the filmmakers promise an affectionate look at the man, and in that they deliver.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Pitch Perfect 2
    The comedy choir wars are more intense, more absurd and more lowbrow fun than ever in Pitch Perfect 2. It is almost impossible not to be amused by the cutthroat world of competitive a cappella.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 10 Betsy Sharkey
    Hot Pursuit
    This is an equal-opportunity fiasco.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Maggie
    The plot is lean, the dialogue is spare and there are some intriguing stabs at intellectual and emotional terrain. But the pacing is deadly, so slow there might be time for a catnap or two without missing anything important.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
    There is a great deal of silliness about Allan's journey from start to finish and no real message other than to never stop taking life as it comes. But there is also a great deal of fun in watching a 100-year-old man climb out a window and disappear.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    Between the sheer on-screen beauty and the finely wrought performances of Mulligan and Schoenaerts, Far from the Madding Crowd has its appeal. Yet like unrequited love, one can't help but lament what might have been.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Welcome to Me
    Though some of the jabs "Me" takes at reality TV are clever, the film, like Alice, tends to fracture at key moments. What makes it worth watching is Wiig.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    24 Days
    Knowing the outcome behind the true-life tragedy 24 Days doesn't diffuse the horror, the tension or the sadness of watching one family's drama unfold day after agonizing day when a son is kidnapped and hope dies.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Adult Beginners
    The kind of comedy that goes down easy even as it looks at the hard stuff.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    The Age of Adaline
    Not "An Affair to Remember," mind you, but a welcome change from the Nicholas Sparks brand of mush that has overtaken the hearts-and-flowers corner of movieland.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Clouds of Sils Maria
    Stewart does exactly what Valentine describes as Jo-Ann's great gift — she becomes the character, completing disappearing inside Valentine. It makes the interplay between Binoche, a master of that sort of disappearing act as well, and Stewart mesmerizing to watch.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Betsy Sharkey
    The Longest Ride
    The two-plus hours is mostly marked by an emptiness born of scene after scene designed to blatantly manipulate emotions rather than trigger them.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    5 to 7
    The banter between Brian and Arielle is easy and often amusing. But despite all the tangled sheets and entwined bodies during assignations at the St. Regis hotel, the relationship never moves beyond the look of puppy love.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Ned Rifle
    When the writer-director is on his game, as he is in Ned Rifle, the effect is bizarre black comedy that is designed to set you thinking about what his satire is really saying.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Furious 7
    Furious 7 is the fuel-injected fusion of all that is and ever has been good in "The Fast and the Furious" saga.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Betsy Sharkey
    Get Hard
    Get Hard... is certainly a better name than, say, Laugh Hard, which you won't do nearly enough.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Home
    Tension is one of Home's biggest issues. There just isn't nearly enough of it. Story is another.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Seymour: An Introduction
    Ethan Hawke's documentary on pianist Seymour Bernstein is very much like the sonatas Bernstein plays so beautifully, teaches so insightfully — quietly moving, infinitely deep.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    The Gunman
    Instead of a pot-boiling crime noir like the one that exists in the pages of the late French novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette's "The Prone Gunman" (which sounds better in French), the adaptation is a frustrating fiasco that kills the material and squanders its exceedingly fine cast.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
    Though it might not sound it, watching Kumiko brood is mesmerizing. Kikuchi uses her mournful eyes to take us to dark places, though she's equally adept at surprise and confusion, even joy when it comes along.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Cymbeline
    Despite Almereyda's invention in approaching this tawdry Shakespearean tale, he misfires badly. All that is left is the semblance of Cymbeline.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Cinderella
    As pure of heart as its heroine, Cinderella floats across the screen like a gossamer confection, full of elegant beauty and quiet grace.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    The Salvation
    The movie has a few bursts of energy and invention — a cleverly executed jailbreak is one. But the story drifts and the pacing drags, failing to gather much steam until the final moments.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Focus
    The film is breezy from start to finish.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    All the Wilderness
    All the Wilderness seems tailor-made to play to the actor's strengths — Johnson's script is as lean as Smit-McPhee, both proving adept at doing more with less.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    The DUFF
    Romance, or the desire to find someone special, isn't a bad thing — if it's not the only thing. But as it stands in DUFF, the denouement at prom has cliché written all over it.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    The Last Five Years
    The Last Five Years is not unpleasant to watch — the leads are delightful — but as a movie experience, it's not especially satisfying either.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
    The tragedy here is not a single story but that a process so inequitable and so inane continues in a place that is considered to be enlightened. Gett, in moving and infuriating ways, exposes a very bleak corner of that world.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Kingsman: The Secret Service
    Directed by "Kick-Ass" action specialist Matthew Vaughn with slightly more vigor than necessary and a shade less restraint than needed, it's a bit too too to be "brilliant," as the Brits say. But it's not half bad either.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
    What saves the film is that it is also packed to the gills with the classic slapstick sweetness that makes SpongeBob — in or out of water, on big screen or small — hard not to laugh at and love at least a little. Giggle, giggle.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 10 Betsy Sharkey
    Seventh Son
    I know it's early, but Seventh Son may actually be the worst movie of the year. It will most certainly be a contender. The medieval/fantasy/action/drama/romance hits pretty close to a perfect 10 on the egregious scale.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Wild Card
    Although the film has little of the smarts and the sizzle of the best of Goldman, it does have a splash of the writer's sense of irony.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Timbuktu
    The screenplay — by the French Mauritania director and Malian co-writer Kessen Tall, in her feature debut — is a mesmerizing blend of the horrific and the humorous as it boils ideology down to the personal level.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Winter Sleep
    Like so much of Ceylan's work, Winter Sleep is a haunting piece.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 30 Betsy Sharkey
    Strange Magic
    The look of the animation has limited charm. The story is primarily a string of life lessons for little ones, impossible to miss. And there is a great deal of singing. I don't think even fools will fall in love with Strange Magic.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Little Accidents
    The look helps provide a little subtext, but not enough. For such an emotional piece, the dialogue stays too close to the surface. More problematic, the trio's encounters feel contrived; you can see the filmmaker's hand staging each one.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Paddington
    Artfully and cleverly, the sweet spirit of that young bear from darkest Peru and his many London misadventures materializes brilliantly on screen in the very good hands of writer-director-conjurer Paul King.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    The Wedding Ringer
    It's not quite a match made in heaven, but there is considerable comic chemistry between the high-octane Kevin Hart and the energy-conserving Josh Gad. A good thing since theirs is the only relationship worth watching in The Wedding Ringer.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 20 Betsy Sharkey
    Taken 3
    This time around the dramatics and dialogue are so laugh-out-loud funny that if there is a "4" — despite the promises that "3" is the final chapter — maybe it should be a straight-out satire.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Two Days, One Night
    That Two Days, One Night retains such an organic sensibility, even with a major star in the lead, is credit to both filmmakers and actress.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    Big Eyes
    This portrait of a woman on the verge — of success, of suppression, of submission, of rebellion — is never fully realized.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Into the Woods
    What makes Into the Woods so entertaining is the cleverness of the tale itself and the way specific characters match the talents of its storytellers.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Betsy Sharkey
    Annie
    Director Will Gluck's glam, grim re-imagining of the Depression-era musical about the hard-hearted rich man and the little girl who melts him, is truly depressing.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
    The finale is not an all-out disappointment. It should satisfy the franchise's fans, and it does wrap up any loose ends you might be wondering about.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Monk With a Camera
    Ultimately the documentary falls short of explaining why Vreeland not only made his choice but maintained it.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Top Five
    Top Five is fully loaded. The laughs are earned, the intelligence never disappears, all the performers shine. But Rock is the diamond — raw, rough and rare.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Inherent Vice
    Joaquin Phoenix and the terrific acting ensemble that joins him in this pot-infused '70s-era beach noir create such a good buzz you can almost get a contact high from watching.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Miss Julie
    The heat that should saturate the film as betrayals mount and boundaries are broken flickers and dies many times over Miss Julie's languid two-plus hours.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Wild
    Though there are occasional stumbles along the 1,100-mile hike, the peaks in Wild make the journey more than worth it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Babadook
    The film is quite serious about pushing its players and its audiences through the mental, as well as emotional, meat grinder. Many times along the way, you fear you know where things are going. But Kent is clever in choosing unexpected spots to pull the rug out from under you.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Penguins of Madagascar
    The pun is a gun for Penguins' writers. Not a sharpshooter rifle, but a machine gun that unloads a nonstop quip barrage, mowing down the real promise of this 3-D animation action comedy.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Horrible Bosses 2
    Make no mistake, despite some well-earned laughs, "Horrible Bosses 2" is not what qualifies as a good movie or even a particularly good R-rated comedy. But there is more to laugh at in "2" than the first, so let's go with less horrible, shall we?
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Invisible Front
    We look to documentaries like The Invisible Front — dense with detail, straightforward in laying out the issues — to put history in perspective. And in this case to illuminate a little-known page from it.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
    It is the way in which the writer-director uses the specter of vampires and vices to take an off-center cut at Iranian gender politics and U.S.-Eurocentric pop culture that sets the film apart.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    National Gallery
    In a time when so many documentary filmmakers take on advocacy roles, National Gallery represents the heart of what Wiseman does best — step back and let the place and its people lead the story.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The Homesman
    The film's difficulties are in the roiling emotions that run through it. Intimacy and the interdependence required to survive a harsh environment are more easily achieved. Swank and Jones, in particular, are a very good odd couple, playing saint and sinner, sometimes reversing the roles.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Dumb and Dumber To
    The sequel sometimes feels like a series of gags ginned up by a gaggle of writers who are not always on the same page.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Big Hero 6
    Amid all the nerd-inspired firepower that gives the movie much of its flash, the big boy's droning tone proves to be the film's stealth weapon, perfect for pulling off highly targeted comic strikes.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    Pelican Dreams
    It's when the film detours into Irving's personal attachment to the birds, including photos of her as a child on the beach, that Pelican Dreams gets seriously off track. Fortunately, pelicans are interesting creatures and the time spent with the lens focused on them is payoff enough.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Elsa & Fred
    Though the issues are heavy, the execution is light, enjoyable, but it keeps Elsa & Fred closer to "Sleepless in Seattle" than Fellini's deliciously deep Roman affair.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Listen Up Philip
    While the intolerance fueling this dark, existential comedy won't be to everyone's liking, the film's cerebral beat-down is a strange and sardonic thing of beauty.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Camp X-Ray
    By boiling too much down to black and white, Camp X-Ray's ability to say something significant is diluted.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Stonehearst Asylum
    On the surface, Anderson seems to have all the necessary pieces for a surreal psycho pop. But the fear factor eludes him, leaving Stonehearst Asylum more insipid than insane.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Laggies
    The director is increasingly adept at getting her actors to bask in emotions without any pretensions. It makes for easy watching. Seigel's breezy script makes the dialogue easy listening.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
    The director's surrealist portrait of modern times and the cult of celebrity is brilliant on so many levels that even the occasional downdraft can't keep Birdman from soaring.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Whiplash
    It is one of those scorching films that burns through emotions, uses up actors, wrings out audiences. And the jazz, well, it has its own moments of brutal, breathtaking fusion.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    St. Vincent
    In a roundabout way, St. Vincent delivers, though less as a film than a platform for an object lesson by St. Bill in effortless acting.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
    At the moment, modestly amusing does not stave off that desire for a really great live-action family film after years of watching the terrain land-grabbed by animation.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Lilting
    Teasing out the vagaries of language, how confusing communication can be, is such a good idea. Despite a strong start, the filmmaker doesn't exactly know where to go with it. Still, there are moments before things get away from him that are captivating to watch and lovely to listen to.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    The Good Lie
    The pieces don't always fit together as neatly as you might wish, but if you let it, The Good Lie's heartwarming soul will win you over.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Betsy Sharkey
    Men, Women & Children
    A few steps further and Reitman might have turned Men, Women & Children into parody — at least that might have made for some laughs.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Two Night Stand
    It turns out Two Night Stand is a one-act sex comedy badly in need of two more — acts, not nights.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The Two Faces of January
    Amini has a powerful acting triumvirate in Mortensen, Dunst and Isaac to help him deal with the capricious nature of this particular tangled web.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    The Boxtrolls
    You can see the years of effort, the polish and precision that went into creating The Boxtrolls... But somehow it still doesn't add up to enough.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    This Is Where I Leave You
    When the grown-up going gets tough, the one thing you know is that the Altmans won't abandon one another. Which makes "This Is Where I Leave You" not earthshaking by any stretch, but somehow reassuring.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Tracks
    The desert trek in Tracks is as brutal as it is beautiful; the performance by Mia Wasikowska as raw as the reality. And the camels? If they don't steal your heart it must be stone-hinged.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    The Skeleton Twins
    One of the better movies to come along this year.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Last Weekend
    All the possibilities of a richly drawn family squabble fade faster than the final days of summer.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Betsy Sharkey
    Frontera
    In trying to create a balanced portrait of the conflicts and the ordinary people affected by them, director Michael Berry, who co-wrote the screenplay with Luis Moulinet III, chips away at the authenticity and intensity that an issue-driven film like this sorely needs.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    The Last of Robin Hood
    Instead of a cautionary tale, they've looked at Flynn's life through rose-colored glasses.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    Cantinflas
    Cantinflas the movie tries to capture the magic of this much-loved legend, and it does so in fits and starts.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    The One I Love
    Though the indie falls short of its grandest ambitions, it is inventive in constructing its conceits. As to Moss and Duplass? It's hard not to love them — for better or worse.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Love Is Strange
    In the hands of two of the craft's best, the most ordinary of moments become illuminating, penetrating.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
    There is an interesting kernel of a story about beauty, betrayal and brutality inside each of the film's scenarios and a cast that could handle anything thrown at it. But the kernel never pops, and all we're really left with is a whole lot of neo-noir corn.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    The Trip to Italy
    Brydon and Coogan's discourse over breakfast, lunch and dinner is captured with a casualness that makes the eavesdropping delicious.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 20 Betsy Sharkey
    The Killer Inside Me
    Little more than torture porn tricked out in art-house finery. That is the bigger crime here.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Happy Christmas
    All in all, Happy Christmas is a good deal like cartoon Charlie Brown's classic tree — scraggly, plenty of heart and much to enjoy, especially if you prefer your presents homemade.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Magic in the Moonlight
    The séances are great fun, and the cast is charmingly eclectic. But as to whether "Moonlight" is magical — it is, but ever, ever so slightly.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    The Empty Hours
    Like everything else about this lovely film, life, love and emotional growth are marked out in lush, languid, luminous terms.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    I Origins
    On the face of it, tackling the warring sides of science and the spirit seemed a good fit for the writer-director, who continues to be drawn to existential themes. There are occasional flashes of the exceptional, but the film's dodgy story can't sustain them.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Betsy Sharkey
    The Purge: Anarchy
    The Purge: Anarchy is a good deal bloodier, but also — gulp — a good deal better than its predecessor. Make no mistake, a good "Purge" does not equal a good movie, but the post-apocalyptic thriller is slightly more interesting because it takes itself, and its menace, more seriously.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Sex Tape
    Since it's a comedy, much could be forgiven if the film was consistent in generating laughs, but the comedy is as erratic as the couple's sex life.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger
    Joe Berlinger's densely detailed new documentary about the legendary Boston mobster is disturbing on so many levels it's hard not to wonder why Bulger was the only one on trial.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Land Ho!
    Land Ho! is full of surprises, rich in the way it noses around the rocky terrain of aging in an indifferent world through the engaging performances of its two stars.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Betsy Sharkey
    Boyhood
    An extraordinarily intimate portrait of a life unfolding and an exceptional, unconventional film.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Betsy Sharkey
    Venus in Fur
    It is a caustic, comic, cerebral romp for a long time before it hits you with its best shot — some Polanski-worthy darkness.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Betsy Sharkey
    Gabrielle
    Though the movie wears its agenda on its sleeve, the music and the cast, many of them members of the real Les Muses, as Marion-Rivard was for a time, are simply so charming that it makes Gabrielle hard to resist.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Betsy Sharkey
    Tammy
    There are some laughs and, at least on screen, more than a few tears. But it doesn't come together with the kind of satisfying punch a comedy should deliver.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Betsy Sharkey
    Snowpiercer
    [Bong Joon-ho] combines a great cast, a gripping idea and a gorgeously grimy retro aesthetic to keep this eerie examination of the train wreck of humanity racing along.
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