CNN
For 598 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 42% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 4.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Brian Lowry's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 61
Highest review score: 100 Toy Story 4
Lowest review score: 20 Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 44 out of 598
598 movie reviews
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Brian Lowry
    “The Great Lillian Hall” operates as a love letter to the theater while catering to those who can appreciate an “All About Eve” reference or two.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Lowry
    A particularly rich Disney+ documentary that captures the man as well as the ideas that will ensure him a kind of immortality.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Lowry
    Young Woman and the Sea is an exercise in the simple power of a well-told story, the kind that can wash over and uplift you all at once.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 55 Brian Lowry
    A nonstop sci-fi action movie that basically gets the job done with a plot that recalls Disney’s “Big Hero 6,” just with a lot more cursing.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Brian Lowry
    Part heist movie, part family reunion, the film draws upon the most salient characteristics of the flabby feline, but mostly as an excuse to build a story that seems to crawl further from its origins with every passing frame.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 65 Brian Lowry
    Forty-five years after “Mad Max” introduced many to a young Aussie named Mel Gibson, Miller certainly hasn’t lost his touch as a visual stylist and mad maestro of elaborate action. In almost every other respect, this feels like one of those instances where there’s more sound than “Fury.”
    • 46 Metascore
    • 55 Brian Lowry
    IF
    The best parts should strike a mildly receptive chord with parents while potentially boring younger kids, a prescription that could subject the movie’s imaginary friends to a harsh reality once audiences in summer-movie mode get a good look at it.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 65 Brian Lowry
    Thin as biopics go, the power of Abela’s portrayal elevates the film, providing a poignance and strength that’s the clearest motivation to go, go, go.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Brian Lowry
    Power makes an intellectual argument, but it’s built on a visceral foundation, purposefully bleeding from past generations into the current one.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Lowry
    This latest addition surpasses expectations, honoring the source while building a muscular and even thoughtful adventure around a very ape-centric concept.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Brian Lowry
    Far from a passion project, this Netflix film distinctly feels – as one of its writers says in the production notes – like a punchline in search of a movie, built on a soggy parade of sugary cameos that doesn’t provide much snap, crackle and pop.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Brian Lowry
    The Idea of You will likely be most satisfying for those who choose not to sweat the details, enjoying the scenery and fantasy wrapped up in it. Think of it as one of those movies that really reinforces the adage there are no new ideas, just fresh versions of old ones set to different beats.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Brian Lowry
    The Fall Guy is too flat in the early going to fully meet that challenge, rallying toward the end without reaching the heights required to make a really big splash.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Brian Lowry
    In tennis, “love” means nothing. Love also has little to do with “Challengers,” which uses the sport as the backdrop to serve up an elaborate, non-linear psychological triangle that proves twisty and enticing for much of the match, before double faulting by whiffing on the ending.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Lowry
    Alas, the characters and dialogue remain clunky, which shouldn’t be surprising given how derivative almost every beat of this is, down to the robot voiced by Anthony Hopkins.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Brian Lowry
    A dual attempt to breathe life into the vampire and haunted-house genres, “Abigail” could have been called “Don’t Tell Mom the Kid I’m Babysitting’s Dead.” The simple premise, however, turns into an effective little horror movie, a bit strained toward the end, but until then a clever and inventive take on six people literally just trying to make it through the night.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Brian Lowry
    As war movies go, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ends up in a kind of no-man’s land, draping elements of “Mission: Impossible,” “Inglourious Basterds” and director Guy Ritchie’s brand of violent action-comedy over the bones of a fascinating World War II true story. The underwritten, somewhat messy results are broadly entertaining if not fully seaworthy from a dramatic point of view.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Brian Lowry
    The images of the US turned into a war-torn country provides a sobering dystopian backdrop for an action movie that works on that level, without lingering in the mind as long as it could or should have.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 55 Brian Lowry
    “Scoop” juggles so many timely balls it’s a bit of a shame the film doesn’t accomplish that task with more dexterity.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 30 Brian Lowry
    “Godzilla vs. Kong” director Adam Wingard and a trio of credited writers probably make the right decision in treating all this with grave earnestness, which doesn’t render most of the situations, dialogue and the climactic encounter any less laughable.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Brian Lowry
    The result is a sturdy but unspectacular film, one that honors Chisholm’s place in history while representing just one, too-concentrated facet of her giant shadow.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Lowry
    For an actor known for having led his crew as it boldly explored humankind’s final frontier, “You Can Call Me Bill,” somewhat disappointingly, takes its extensive access to Shatner and doesn’t go much of anywhere.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Lowry
    Sweeney ably carries the film on that level, though there are beats courtesy of director Michael Mohan and screenwriter Andrew Lobel as likely to elicit uncomfortable chuckles from the audience as fear.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 45 Brian Lowry
    Granted, the cast is too talented not to conjure a few amusing moments, but it’s hard to escape the sense of a movie that’s sleepwalking through the old neighborhood as opposed to playfully strolling down memory lane.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Brian Lowry
    The challenge with any reboot invariably involves capturing what people liked about its inspiration while bringing fresh wrinkles to it. On that level “Road House” moderately works – specifically, for the intended audience – with the disclaimer that trying to look bigger and being bigger aren’t necessarily one and the same.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Lowry
    Built atop a provocative-sounding title and premise, The American Society of Magical Negroes starts and ends quite well. Almost everything in between, alas, proves uneven and inert in a way that dilutes its satirical punch, making this an interesting introduction for first-time writer-director Kobi Libii but a less than satisfying one.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Brian Lowry
    The film has an old-fashioned “B movie” vibe, which, for a project headed straight to Netflix, is almost exactly as it should be. As for the feminist message wrapped into the premise, it’s merely further evidence that Brown, at the ripe old age of 20, looks like a boss both on screen and off.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Brian Lowry
    Slick and briskly paced, the film incorporates its origins while conjuring enough laughs and fun to effectively deliver for parents and their cubs.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 55 Brian Lowry
    Ricky Stanicky might be imaginary and doesn’t measure up to its promise, but in terms of that basket within the wrestler-turned-actor’s filmography, it at least fits Cena like a glove.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Brian Lowry
    Spaceman feels a little too weighty in its reliance on emotional cliches. Whether that’s ultimately due to the underlying material or the heavy hand brought to translating it, the net effect is a failure to launch.

Top Trailers