Derek Smith

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Slant Magazine
For 336 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 15% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 83% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 14.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Derek Smith's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 51
Highest review score: 88 Everything Everywhere All at Once
Lowest review score: 0 The Last Face
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 133 out of 336
  2. Mixed: 74 out of 336
  3. Negative: 129 out of 336
336 movie reviews
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    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Coded Bias
    The documentary dives down the rabbit hole to chillingly, comprehensively expose how algorithms can perpetuate bias in often unforeseen and unjust ways.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    His House
    Throughout, Remi Weekes forcefully, resonantly ties the film’s terror to the inner turmoil of his characters.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Sound of Metal
    Darius Marder’s film captures, with urgency and tenderness, just how enticing the residue of the past can be.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    Blood on the Wall
    Sebastian Junger and Nick Quested’s prismatic look at a devastating new chapter in the War on Drugs lacks for cohesiveness.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 63 Derek Smith
    The Secrets We Keep
    The film is ultimately too tidy to embrace anything truly startling or unexpected, either stylistically or narratively.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Derek Smith
    The Disciple
    Chaitanya Tamhane gives full dimension to the rich, complex, and sometimes contradictory nature of the relationship between disciple and guru.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Derek Smith
    Feels Good Man
    That the democratization of the internet has opened a doorway for fascist ideologies to openly quash democratic ones is an irony that isn’t lost on the film.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    Words on Bathroom Walls
    The film reeks of the extremely idealistic notions of young love that plague many a YA adaptation.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    The One and Only Ivan
    The charitable representation of Bryan Cranston’s character greatly diminishes the emotional resonance of the film’s dramatic turns in the final act.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 25 Derek Smith
    Project Power
    The film is an unwieldy array of muddled ideas that never gel together into a cohesive whole.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Derek Smith
    Get Duked!
    A taut genre exercise that delivers enough surprises and cleverly timed bits of humor for its sometimes familiar, uneven narrative beats to play an original tune.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    I Used to Go Here
    The film is almost sadistically driven to turn a woman’s trip down memory lane into fodder for cringe humor.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    We Are Little Zombies
    The film is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a world where emotions are accessed and revealed primarily through digital intermediaries.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 38 Derek Smith
    My Spy
    Peter Segal’s film is pulled in so many different directions that it comes to feel slack.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 38 Derek Smith
    Run with the Hunted
    Some of the film’s narrative threads are frustratingly unresolved, while others are wrapped up in arbitrary fashion.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    The Lovebirds
    Once the film shifts into a broader comedic register, it no longer capitalizes on Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae’s gift for gab.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    Military Wives
    The film seems almost content to have you forget about everything that inspired it in the first place.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Driveways
    The film’s devotion to the belief that kindness can be a balm for almost any hurt is deeply moving.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 63 Derek Smith
    1BR
    The film gives palpable expression to the sense of hopelessness felt by those who fall under the control of cults.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Nafi's Father
    The film vibrantly articulates all that’s lost when people are held under the draconian decree of warlords.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs
    The film speaks lyrically to a peoples’ determination to find a meaningful way to live in a rapidly changing modern world.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Derek Smith
    Slay the Dragon
    The film is suitably direct, clear-eyed, and exhaustive in documenting the massive impacts that gerrymandering has, particularly on communities of color.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    Hope Gap
    So many grandiose tactics portend a grander revelation than the film’s otherwise low-key three-hander delivers.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    Wendy
    Wendy veers awkwardly and aimlessly between tragedy and jubilance, never accruing any lasting emotional impact.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Corpus Christi
    It’s within the murky realm of self-doubt and spiritual anxiety that it’s at its most audacious and compelling.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 63 Derek Smith
    The Photograph
    The film is at its best when it’s focused on the euphoria and tribulations of its central couple's love affair.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Gretel & Hansel
    Beginning with the reversed names in its title, the film announces itself as a distinctly feminine spin on the Grimm fairy tale.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 38 Derek Smith
    The Last Full Measure
    The film largely evades any perspectives that might question the institutions that put our soldiers in harm’s way.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 25 Derek Smith
    Dolittle
    Dolittle’s inability to completely develop any of its characters reduces the film to all pomp and no circumstance.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 25 Derek Smith
    Like a Boss
    Its inconsistent, half-baked characterizations would be more forgivable were they at least in the service of some inspired comedy.
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