David Fear

Select another critic »
Rolling Stone, Time Out
For 1,267 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 34% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 64% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 4.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

David Fear's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 61
Highest review score: 100 Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion [re-release]
Lowest review score: 0 Madame Web
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 537 out of 1267
  2. Mixed: 641 out of 1267
  3. Negative: 89 out of 1267
1267 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 David Fear
    Prey
    Prey, director Dan Trachtenberg’s addition to the Predatorverse, isn’t just an intriguing expansion of the series or a cool intellectual-property detour; it’s something close to a B-movie masterpiece, a survivalist thriller-slash-proto-Western-slash-final-girl horror flick that, like both its iconic alien and its indigenous Ripley 2.0 heroine, is extremely good at what it sets out to do.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 David Fear
    Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
    It's a revolutionary movie in more ways than one.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    Lenny Cooke
    You walk away with far more questions than answers — a profile foul by any other name.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    The Menu
    A movie that starts off as a scalpel-sharp satire, casually slides into becoming a skin-of-your-teeth horror film and ends as a flamebroiled screed in more ways than one, director Mark Mylod’s Grand Guignol take on the master-and-servant relationship of hospitality industries will not suit everyone’s palettes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    Heretic
    To say that this horror movie hits all of the marks it needs to hit would be just south of blasphemous. The manner in which Grant both grounds the material and lobs it into over-the-top territory, however, is simply divine.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    My Brother the Devil
    Even those who aren’t well-versed in the-’hood-always-wins dramas can see what’s coming. So it’s to newcomer Sally El Hosaini’s credit that she embeds a tangible, lived-in sense of the region’s diaspora community and urban criminal underbelly (wagwan, near-indecipherable East End patois!) that’s leagues away from anthropological fetishizing.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 David Fear
    Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
    Documentarian Jon Foy spent a decade following both the phenomenon and those who've tried cracking the code, and while his film offers little in the way of answers, it says volumes about delusional obsessives.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed
    It’s best to look at All That Heaven Allowed less as a Rock doc and more as a chronicle of Hollywood’s system of subterfuge and suggestion, all built around protecting and/or punishing those who preferred the company of their own sex.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    Koch
    The result is neither blind idolatry nor a definitive portrait; just a major missed opportunity content to loiter in the middle of the road.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    Spider-Man: No Way Home
    No Way Home is a perfectly fine superhero movie.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 David Fear
    Ralph Breaks the Internet
    It’s here that directors Phil Johnston and Rich Moore, armed with a screenplay cowritten by Johnston and Pamela Ribon, find a common ground between family-friendly entertainment and sharp social satire.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    Mozart's Sister
    The film's dogged repetitions regarding Nannerl's real-life raw deal dilute the reparative nature of the story after a while, and not even the movie's grainy, retro–art-cinema look can keep viewers from gradually tuning out.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    War Game
    War Game concentrates a lot on the “how to” part. But it also says a lot about how eerily easy and how horrifyingly relatable the “why” of it all is.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    11 Flowers
    Once the murderer starts relying on the lad’s kindness, all the preceding kid stuff starts to take on a purposefully sour tang.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    The Zen of Bennett
    Watching the elder statesman spin ring-a-ding wisdom is one thing; witnessing his generosity to another artist who couldn't handle her own talent, however, speaks volumes about what actually lurks under his placid, seemingly imperturbable surface.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    Everybody's Everything
    Yes, it’s grim and gloomy — and like Lil Peep’s music, there’s also a sense of catharsis in all of this. More than anything, Jones and Silyan seem to be fashioning a postmortem that plays like his greatest hits, in which wounded wooziness somehow gives way to exhilaration and a warped sense of uplift.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 David Fear
    Exit 8
    You enter this unlikely, but undeniably extraordinary take on a video game ready to be spooked. You exit it with the sensation that you’ve just witnessed a waking nightmare perfect for Tokyo commuters and Brooklyn sad dads alike.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    Erupcja
    Erupcja knows what’s it’s working with, and how to tap into something bigger than itself.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    Winnebago Man
    What started as an underground goof ended up becoming a fascinating foul-mouthed curio; though it aims for profundity, Winnebago Man seems destined to suffer the same fate.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 David Fear
    Gemini
    It may feel insubstantial at times, but somewhere out there, there's a twin of this film that lays on the L.A. Self-Owns Itself mojo in thick clumps. Gemini is the good-sibling version. It's worth a whirl.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    Making the Boys
    Ignore the documentary's regrettable low-rent look and that kitschy "Love, American Style" soundtrack, and just focus on how this portrait turns a work of art into a sociological flash point.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 David Fear
    The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby
    The film occasionally skews a little on the PBS-dry side, but in terms of looking back on a legacy of American skullduggery and high-level shenanigans, its access and acknowledgment of our dark past make for one intimate indictment.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    A Quiet Place Part II
    Part II feels like just another case of sequel-itis, something designed to metastasize into just another franchise among many. Just get through this, it says, and then tune in next year, next summer, next financial quarter statement or board-meeting announcement, for the real story.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 David Fear
    Searching for Ingmar Bergman
    (The verb in the title is not superfluous. If this movie resembles anything, it’s "Citizen Kane" — structure-wise, if not remotely aesthetically.)
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    Predator: Badlands
    It’s really a comedic road movie at heart, with as much yuks over a mismatched pair trying to get along as yucks involving the goopy innards of cosmic mastodons. Finally, the Predator cinematic-universe remake of Midnight Run that no one knew they, er, needed?
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 David Fear
    Shadow Dancer
    There’s slow-burning, and then there’s simply slow; the difference between the two has never been so apparent.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 David Fear
    The Wonder
    No one would blame you if you prefer your gothic-lit tales straight with no meta-chaser. Yet, largely thanks to Pugh, Leilo’s semi-experimental attempt at blending an old-fashioned melodrama with Media Studies 101 commentary never makes you feel like you’re watching something created in a dorm-session smokeout.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    Collapse
    While this totally impartial approach is admirable, it also robs Collapse of any invested sensibility. Smith has given this bull a stage on which to rage, but why the filmmaker has bothered to mount the platform in the first place is, frustratingly, anybody’s guess.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 David Fear
    The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
    It’s the perfect goodbye from an artist who lived to jolt you out of a sense of complacency. Mission accomplished.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 David Fear
    No One Knows About Persian Cats
    These artists are risking everything by playing Western-influenced music; that Ghobadi cheapens and cheeses up their subversion with Hollywood tricks makes for a seriously bitter irony.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »