Dennis Harvey

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Variety
For 1,462 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Dennis Harvey's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 The White House Effect
Lowest review score: 0 The Hottie & the Nottie
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 560 out of 1462
  2. Mixed: 718 out of 1462
  3. Negative: 184 out of 1462
1462 movie reviews
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    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Incident In a Ghostland
    It all seems slick, intense, and unpleasant in the same hollow way “Martyrs” did, because all the cruelty is so meaningless.
    • 15 Metascore
    • 10 Dennis Harvey
    Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
    Disappointing in every aspect.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Forger
    Nothing feels fresh here — not even Christopher Plummer hamming it up as a crusty-coot grandpa — and Philip Martin’s routinely polished direction only underscores the cliche-composting of Richard D’Ovidio’s script.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Ottoman Lieutenant
    Though the film ultimately hinges on a “forbidden” Muslim-Christian romance, almost nothing is made of the enormous hurdles that would be present in this time and place.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Don't Go
    All this adds up to a big “whatever.” Don’t Go isn’t sure whether it wants to be a frightening fantasy or a poignantly warm-and-fuzzy one.
    • 5 Metascore
    • 10 Dennis Harvey
    The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence)
    Six just wants to shock, though his imagination is so primitive that the effort is strained and a bit pathetic. Initially abrasive, the whole enterprise grows simply tedious well before the now-epically-scaled titular phenom is unveiled in the prison yard.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai
    If outrageous concepts were all, this latest fillip in the oft-eccentric history of Japanese "pink" (softcore sexploitation) cinema would be genius. But the crazy ideas in Takao Nakano's script just fitfully amuse under Mitsuru Meike's draggy direction.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Loser
    This tepid comedy-drama is, lamentably, aptly titled.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    High Voltage
    Short on thrills and energy despite its title, this slick yet sluggish feature often seems barely interested in the horror elements that are, after all, what will primarily lure viewers in.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Linda Linda Linda
    This aimless, lifeless time-killer about four teenage girls prepping for their rock-band gig in a school talent show proves entirely the wrong choice.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Toy Soldiers
    The Toy Soldiers sports a basic competence in assembly that slightly elevates its material. The same can’t be said of the performers, though they try, some achieving a semblance of naturalism, others more inept or hammy.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    My Soul to Take
    This dumb, derivative teen slasher movie would be uninspiring coming from any writer-director, let alone one with several genre classics under his belt.
    • 16 Metascore
    • 10 Dennis Harvey
    Surfer, Dude
    Hapless, laughless movie.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    China Salesman
    It’s the rare kind of sprawling, costly hot mess that achieves instant camp gratification other fiascos must wait decades to ripen toward.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Synchronic
    Making underwhelming use of its not-bad ... conceit, Benson’s sci-fi-tinged script is not at all ingeniously plotted, insists we care about tritely sketched characters, and is never credible enough to transcend an air of escalating silliness.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Outside Providence
    A disappointingly rote entry in the '70s teen nostalgia sweepstakes.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Run Sweetheart Run
    Nothing gels, as the film careens from cartoonishness to violent peril to attempted satire to sentimentality and so forth, all of it hyperbolic and inorganic.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Braid
    Braid does look great. But Mitzi Peirone’s debut feature is so void of any substance beyond the pretentiously pictorial that one suspects her real calling is in music videos or advertising.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Basement
    There’s a big twist at the end, but like everything else here, it aims for a shock effect that the film is simply too clumsy and psychologically far-fetched to pull off.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Good Boys
    A little too imitative of “Superbad” ... Good Boys lacks that film’s wit and heart. It’s a lively, slick package, yet crude and obvious at every turn.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Raze
    Raze is a brutally monotonous fight-to-the-death-contest actioner whose novelty element — all-female competitors — is undermined by lack of imagination on every other level.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Mission: Impossible II
    Even more empty a luxury vehicle than its predecessor, M:I 2 pushes the envelope in terms of just how much flashy packaging an audience will buy when there's absolutely nada inside.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Away We Go
    Emerges as an oddly sour, unappealing road-trip scenario.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Cabin Fever
    Uncertain whether to go for straight suspense or gross-out effects, genre in-joking or schlock cinema-of-parodic-excess, Eli Roth's backwoods horror opus Cabin Fever seldom sticks with any one tactic.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Pixie
    A decent cast and fast pace make Pixie easy enough to take as disposable entertainment. Yet it also has that annoying edge unique to films that strike an attitude of rakish sophistication while actually serving up lowbrow quips about prison rape, fat people and menstruation.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Nijinsky: The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky
    Despite its occasional visual interest, avant-garde package is far from the accessible tortured-artist portrait helmer essayed 15 years ago in "Vincent." Even committed dance and experimental cinema fans are likely to find this rough sledding.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Gut
    A psychological thriller requires some psychology as well as thrills, two things almost entirely absent from Gut. Its title isn't the only terse thing about this monotonous quasi-horror tale, which aims for a minimalist intensity by providing precious little character detailing or location color.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Adopt a Highway
    All evidence here suggests that Marshall-Green needs a strong collaborator — or maybe just someone else’s screenplay — the next time he gets behind the camera.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Creation Stories
    As directed by Nick Moran in obvious imitation of executive producer Danny Boyle’s most hyperbolic style, scripted by Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh, this apparently loose interpretation of the subject’s memoir becomes a hyperventilating “Behind the Music” caricature, all familiar flash and precious little substance.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Book Club
    Really, it’s sad that the best Hollywood can come up with for so much seasoned talent is this stale shake-and-bake combining upscale-lifestyle porn with some tepid smirky humor.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Focus
    A stilted, heavy-handed parable about fascistic intolerance.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Kuso
    The referentiality of “Kuso,” its general snark, and even its defensive self-criticism (characters state “I hate this movie!” more than once) fail to make it any more funny or inspired, let alone any less of a shapeless chore to sit through.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Brothers
    Pic's complete lack of cinematic verve, along with bland tech work, do much to drain the juice out of what should have been a fierce, fun battle of the sexes.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Body
    The polished, bland low-budget presentation doesn’t raise much tension, and the script springs no real surprises
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Darlin'
    This first feature from “Walking Dead” thesp-turned-writer/director Pollyanna McIntosh (who played the feral captive in “The Woman”) proves an increasingly wobbly mix of comedy, horror and social critique, its heavy-handed indictment of stereotypical religious hypocrisy finally dragging the enterprise into caricature.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Halloween (2007)
    Leaves nothing to the imagination: Michael Myers is always right there in plain sight, committing mayhem sans suspenseful buildup or mystique.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Saw
    A crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Caught
    Instead of emphasizing tense action and atmosphere — the usual limited-budget solutions — the filmmakers here seem to think having their characters nervously chatter on about their situation in reams of clumsy dialogue will do the trick. It does not.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Greenfingers
    This shameless knockoff marches lock-stepped through moves that were already looking as tired as the Macarena.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 10 Dennis Harvey
    Bully
    By turns turgid, embarrassing and plain off-putting.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Boy
    So little happens in The Boy, and so little suspense is effectively built around its central figure, that by the time things finally do heat up the movie has flatlined too completely for us to care.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Red Joan
    Tweedy, dreary, and unconvincing. ... It’s dismaying that so little drama is wrung out of the tale, and that what we get too often feels like a cliché-riddled romantic pulp.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Seance
    Seance proves a disappointingly boilerplate retro slasher that’s pedestrian on every level from concept to execution.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat
    Too underground in feel.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Choose or Die
    While there have been worse-crafted, even more routinely formulaic Netflix horror efforts, this one takes the cake for sheer whateverness of barely-there plot, concept, character detailing and so on.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Under the Electric Sky
    The pic provides lots of sexy, neon-hued eye-candy but not many images of deeper resonance.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Guns Akimbo
    This undeniably slick, energetic contraption plays somewhere between grating and numbing.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Eat Wheaties!
    Its content and execution are innocuous to the point of tedium, while the protagonist is no undervalued sweetie but the kind of grating personality that can clear a room.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Piñero
    Hectic, sketchy and finally dull.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Monkeybone
    It's equal parts wacky, sappy and sniggery.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
    Juggles three separate time periods -- and is completely formulaic in each one.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Coyote Lake
    While the movie doesn’t work, it isn’t idiosyncratic enough even to hold attention as a misfired oddity.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Simon Birch
    Johnson (who scripted "Grumpy Old Men") flattens out any promise so completely that the feature resembles nothing so much as a subpar "Hallmark Hall of Fame" entry.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Founders Day
    There are enough formulaic elements, especially teens meeting gory deaths, to keep undiscerning viewers in their seats. But the script (co-written by Erik and sibling Carson) stumbles in its climactic revelations, with an even worse epilogue bound to send patrons out rolling their eyes in unamused disbelief.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    A Case of You
    A lot of interesting, funny performers aren’t very interesting or funny in director Kat Corio’s A Case of You.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Medallion
    At times plays as if it were aimed at children, but more often simply seems to be aiming blind at whatever genre cliche the five credited writers fix upon in any given scene.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Lazy Susan
    Lazy Susan aims hazily between the sad-sack valentine likes of “Muriel’s Wedding” and something more satirically misanthropic, missing a target it never quite commits to in the first place.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Ass Backwards
    Ass Backwards proves that no amount of comic talent can shine — or raise a chuckle — in the absence of even halfway decent material.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Confessions of a Burning Man
    This not particularly well shot/organized feature isn't very engaging on the human level, either.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Pact 2
    The Pact 2 simply stretches out rather than elaborating on its predecessor’s already thin premise, creating holes that are poorly patched over with false scares and unconvincing character behavior.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    After the Dark
    Credit for being offbeat can only do so much to redeem a neither-fish-nor-fowl bore like After the Dark, whose exploitable elements go tastefully unexploited while its gestures toward profundity turn out to be playing air guitar.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Wetlands
    This soggy stab at neo-noir finds Italian-born writer-director Emanuele Della Valle out of her element in a pretentious meller set on the Jersey shore.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Big Sky
    Evan M. Wiener’s screenplay throws in too many disparate elements without developing any of them very effectively, while Grau’s direction is slick but unable to provide the tension or consistency needed.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Teaching Mrs. Tingle
    A pat, hollow exercises with few tricks (or treats) up its sleeve.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Ordinary Sinner
    Its central theme being the struggle between Christianity and homophobia -- though what's onscreen is far too vanilla in both content and execution to spark much enthusiasm.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Poker Night
    Flashbacks within flashbacks exhaust viewer patience in this snarky mix of crime, action and sadism.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    31
    Rob Zombie truly loves horror movies. But he still hasn’t made a good one, and “31” is a perfect encapsulation of the reasons why: It’s a fanboy’s highlight reel of homages, without any of the credibility or context that made most of the films he’s inspired by so fine.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    A Nightmare on Elm Street
    While the 1984 film has aged, its now-familiar jolts still pack more punch than this pic's recycled ones, which sometimes register so tepidly as to cause snickers.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Safer at Home
    Will Wernick’s film not only fails to use that format in clever or suspenseful ways, it blows the basics of maintaining plausibility and viewer interest.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    The Assignment
    Nobody — not even viewers willing to settle for good, unclean B-movie fun — is done any favors by something as crude as (re)Assignment, which gracelessly mashes together hardboiled crime-melodrama cliches and an unintentionally funny “Oh no! I’m a chick now!!” gender-change narrative hook.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Bringing Up Bobby
    A technically competent but painfully broad dramedy about a larcenous mother-and-son duo in the Midwest. This gender-flipped, latter-day "Paper Moon" lacks that film's judicious restraint, among other things, alternating hick Americana cartoonishness with maudlin appeals to the tear ducts.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Addicted to Fresno
    A mean-spirited farce whose strenuous bad taste seldom translates into actual laughs.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 10 Dennis Harvey
    Merci Docteur Rey
    A disastrous stab at contemporary farce.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    It's Better to Jump
    The three director-producers’ inability to come up with stronger narrative or thematic organization makes “It’s Better to Jump” play like the professionally polished side product of a vacation stay.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Dead & Breakfast
    Offers plenty of splat with its slapstick. But this strenuous zombie yukfest is no more sophisticated than its nail-on-head title -- making it a joke no smarter than the movies it riffs on.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Equilibrium
    Misses with its blowhard treatment of a silly, obvious script. Results might hazard "Battlefield Earth" comparison if new pic were a tad more fun.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Colonia
    The leads are given the thankless task of maintaining grim poker faces through scene after scene of high contrivance and cliche-ridden dialogue.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Not Another Teen Movie
    A nail in the coffin if not the heart of teen comedies.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Mara
    A generically conceived horror thriller distinguished only by its belief that more hysteria equals a more frightening movie.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Chapter 27
    Jared Leto gained some 70 pounds. Seemingly following his lead, the pic itself is heavy, lethargic, and exasperating.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Cassadaga
    Equal parts gory mayhem, convoluted mystery and rote romance, none of which gel together very well.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Mary
    Beyond de rigueur jump scares, Mary has little real atmosphere or suspense, and that is at least partly due to the fact that its supernatural force is so generically ill-defined.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    ma ma
    Julio Medem’s film is a smiling-through-tears saga whose generally tasteful execution can’t ultimately salvage a whopping load of maudlin contrivance, all designed to burnish the halo around St. Penelope.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 10 Dennis Harvey
    Countdown
    Bombastically dumb new chiller that probably would have been called "Killer App" if that title hadn't already been used several times.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Reuniting the Rubins
    Its humor and sentimentality equally labored, this by-the-numbers picture will look better, albeit still not good, as a latenight cable or streaming time-killer.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Curse of Downers Grove
    Although it’s being marketed as a horror film, The Curse of Downers Grove turns out to be something else — a messy hash of teen soap opera, stalker thriller and whatnot whose titular, possibly supernatural aspect is basically irrelevant.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    The Black Waters of Echo's Pond
    This generic horror meller would be most at home debuting on Syfy -- perhaps double-billed with "Pinata: Survival Island."
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Inheritance
    This overlong tale spends most of its nearly two hours as a somewhat draggy, talky mystery before finally deciding to be a thriller, with credibility lacking throughout.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Vampire Academy
    Mead’s six Vampire Academy books (there’s also an ongoing spinoff series, “Bloodlines”) are relatively brainy and complex within their young-adult subgenre, but their virtues have been reduced to a derivative hash here.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Dark Summer
    While competently made, Dark Summer makes no effort to lend its characters any psychological complexity, or even much distinguishing personality. Nor are the proceedings very scary.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Half Brothers
    It’s a slick film that’s forgettable at best, annoyingly broad and unfunny at worst.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Blue Iguana
    Blue Iguana strains to be antic in every joint, from gimmicky editorial and camera choices to a soundtrack cluttered with early ’80s New Wave tracks by the B-52’s, Violent Femmes, Only Ones — great stuff, but they can’t get a party started that’s already flatlined.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Hot Chick
    At best routinely assembled -- at worst barely competent. The slapstick is labored, and the bigger setpieces flat.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    13
    A starry cast and glossier production values simply work against the black-and-white original's strengths in this stillborn thriller about a deadly game of chance.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Grand Isle
    A sub-Tennessee Williams potboiler triangle between restless sexpot, impotent husband, and hunky handyman ever-so-slowly congeals into a lumpy gumbo of thriller elements in Grand Isle.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    The Great Alaskan Race
    With its general tone of inspirational uplift that’s too often spelled out in dialogue rather than felt, The Great Alaskan Race bears the same relation to “faith-based entertainment” that it does to action-adventure cinema: It gestures in that direction, yet doesn’t actually make the commitment.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Shirin in Love
    When not serving up sentimental contrivance, Shirin in Love is just tepidly cute, with wan comic situations and lines that provide little opportunity for a game-enough cast.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 20 Dennis Harvey
    Silencio
    This turgid fantasy thriller, boasting scant thrills or imagination, douses a mystic time-travel concept with soap operatic hand-wringing to mawkishly unconvincing effect.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Bunraku
    It's a picture that's akin to a terrarium of plastic flowers -- gaudily decorative, but airless and lifeless.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 30 Dennis Harvey
    Lifelines
    Mature in terms of production polish and pro performances, writer-director Rob Margolies' feature debut, Lifelines (until recently called "Wherever You Are"), stumbles in a familiar way: It crams in so many family dysfunctions and plot crises in search of cathartic impact that credibility is stretched to the breaking point.
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