David Sims

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The Atlantic, The A.V. Club
For 464 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 47% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

David Sims' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 One Battle After Another
Lowest review score: 10 Dolittle
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 313 out of 464
  2. Mixed: 102 out of 464
  3. Negative: 49 out of 464
464 movie reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 85 David Sims
    Wild Rose
    That Rose-Lynn is an onstage force is easy to tell from the second she picks up a microphone, but Taylor makes this film less about her gift than about the maturity she needs to take it beyond the local Glasgow pubs. As a result, the film’s melancholy but uplifting closing notes land that much more powerfully.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 45 David Sims
    The Dead Don't Die
    The Dead Don’t Die is the first horror film I’ve seen that seemed as likely to lull me to sleep as to give me nightmares.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 85 David Sims
    Toy Story 4
    I’m all for the studio exploring new concepts and original characters going forward, and setting aside the endless anthologizing of its biggest hits for a good long while. But if I had to get another Toy Story, this is about as strange and beguiling an entry as I could have hoped for.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 David Sims
    Men in Black: International
    This sequel-slash-spinoff comes across as a lifeless piece of content, bearing a brand name and a glossy look but little else to remember it by.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 David Sims
    The Last Black Man in San Francisco
    The Last Black Man in San Francisco works best as a mood piece, and as its final act swung back toward heavy plotting, it mostly lost me, getting bogged down in thinly sketched interpersonal dynamics.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 David Sims
    Dark Phoenix
    The overqualified cast do their best to inject some passion into the proceedings—Fassbender, in particular, is incapable of phoning it in—but the momentum drained out of these X-Men movies long ago. Dark Phoenix should serve as a fittingly perfunctory farewell.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 David Sims
    Rocketman
    It touches on all the usual clichés of this cinematic subgenre. It just manages to do so in the most fizzy, fun fashion, powered by an energetic lead performance from Taron Egerton that goes beyond mimicry.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 85 David Sims
    Booksmart
    The film is simply intent on capturing the energy of that special “us against the world” connection that can exist only in high school and unleashing it onto the screen.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 David Sims
    Aladdin
    It’s a garish, special-effects-laden extravaganza that still manages to feel tossed-off and half-hearted. The film is entirely devoted to the property it’s adapting, but its mimicry underlines just how pale an imitation it is.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 David Sims
    The Souvenir
    Hogg is not a sensationalistic filmmaker, but rather someone who can convey tremendous amounts of emotion through total tranquility on-screen.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 David Sims
    John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
    If the sequels keep coming, the John Wick story may one day collapse on itself. For now, the series remains the most reliable purveyor of high-stakes, onscreen combat around, a franchise that hasn’t yet been tarnished by its ongoing success.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 David Sims
    Tolkien
    This is a biopic so fearful that audiences won’t get the connections it’s drawing that it depicts a CGI dragon stalking the battlefields of the Somme. The result doesn’t rise above the insight of a Wikipedia page.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 David Sims
    Pokémon Detective Pikachu
    No doubt most Hollywood executives are as baffled as I am that Detective Pikachu made it to the big screen. But even more baffling, and heartening, is how well it all works.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 20 David Sims
    Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
    Berlinger’s latest film attempts to reckon with the legacy of a brutal murderer who cynically cultivated his public image to make himself seem more alluring, but the story fails to dig in to the horrifying implications of how Bundy was able to succeed.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 55 David Sims
    Long Shot
    In the end, Long Shot is too fixated on the supposed absurdity of its romantic pair to spend much time considering them as people. Which is a shame, because the human moments are the only parts where the film really shines.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 85 David Sims
    Avengers: Endgame
    The film earns its length not by overstuffing the frame with opulent action, but by slowing things down and basking in the charisma of its ensemble.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 55 David Sims
    Someone Great
    Someone Great is fizzy, frivolous, and probably easily forgotten, but for a weekend-friendly jolt of entertainment, rom-com fans could do far worse.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 65 David Sims
    The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
    The creative journey, and the magical bond between artist and subject, are what ignite Gilliam’s passion here. Unfortunately, the themes of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote are more compelling than the set pieces themselves.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 David Sims
    Long Day's Journey Into Night
    A gorgeous and impossible puzzle of a movie.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 David Sims
    Missing Link
    It’s filled with colorful characters, innovative creature design, and some of the most spectacular sets in Laika’s history.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 David Sims
    Hellboy
    In trying to set itself apart, this film ends up perfectly laying out the case against its own existence.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 95 David Sims
    High Life
    For all its body horrors and apocalyptic conclusions, High Life is one of Denis’s most loving and tender creations.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 David Sims
    Shazam!
    This is the rare comic-book movie that actually seems geared toward families, mixing adolescent humor with sincere sweetness that doesn’t cloy.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 David Sims
    The Beach Bum
    The most shocking thing about the film is its unabashed cheerfulness. For all Korine’s trademark provocation, The Beach Bum somehow manages to be an upbeat, triumphant tale of creativity and free-spiritedness.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 David Sims
    Dumbo
    The film is just different enough to stick out amid the studio’s backwards-looking slate, and Burton, for the first time in years, shows he hasn’t lost his love for the idiosyncratic.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 85 David Sims
    Ash Is Purest White
    Despite the grand scale, like all of Jia’s works, Ash Is Purest White leaves questions of good and evil to the viewer—this isn’t a philosophical story, but a personal one.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 David Sims
    Us
    Us is a thrill ride, a somber parable, and a potential first chapter in a vast, encyclopedic sci-fi story; talented as ever, Peele has found a way to cram all of that into a gleeful blast of a film.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 David Sims
    The Aftermath
    The script, by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, conveys little beyond the fact that Stephen and Rachael are both sad, nice to each other, and very attractive.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 David Sims
    Gloria Bell
    Given its similarity to the original, Gloria Bell could have just been a curiosity—but the hilarious performances by Moore, Cera, and Turturro make Lelio’s return to his own material more than worth it.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 David Sims
    Captain Marvel
    The 21st entry in Marvel’s galactic film empire, and the first focused on a female superhero (played by Brie Larson), is a perfectly fun time at the movies that deftly lays out the stakes of its new character for many future appearances. But more often than not, it feels a little routine.
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