Genevieve Koski

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The Dissolve, Vox
For 48 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 62% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Genevieve Koski's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 90 Baby Driver
Lowest review score: 20 The Divergent Series: Insurgent
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 48
  2. Mixed: 22 out of 48
  3. Negative: 3 out of 48
48 movie reviews
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    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
    Its kid-friendly, free-for-all spirit rides atop an undercurrent of pointed commentary about the state of the superhero industry (and the entertainment industry more broadly) that will give those parental guides something to hold on to amid the candy-colored cacophony. Or they could just surrender and enjoy the butt jokes. They’re pretty good butt jokes!
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Genevieve Koski
    Baby Driver
    It’s a seemingly straightforward “one last job” crime tale mashed up with a jukebox musical romance, part high-octane action flick and part music video, propelled by perfectly calibrated performances and a wicked sense of humor.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Genevieve Koski
    Rough Night
    Rough Night floats on the strength of its performances and its anything-for-a-laugh sensibility.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Genevieve Koski
    Ted 2
    Where Ted managed a respectable ratio of clever (or at least transcendently dumb) gags to lazy/offensive ones, Ted 2 is a repetitive, self-congratulatory slog, dragged down by a haphazard plot and the same third-act problems that ultimately sunk the first film.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Spy
    Spy never lets its genre conceit get in the way of its comedy, which delivers more laugh-out-loud moments than any other mainstream comedy so far this year.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Genevieve Koski
    The True Cost
    The True Cost’s aim is to make it impossible to ignore fashion’s impact on the world, and it takes an admirably thorough approach to its unwieldy subject. It’s not a particularly cinematic approach, however.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Genevieve Koski
    Pitch Perfect 2
    While there are individual delights within Pitch Perfect 2’s 115 minutes, they don’t add up to a functional, coherent film. There’s no harmony, only loud grandstanding.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Genevieve Koski
    The Age of Adaline
    Like its main character, Age Of Adaline is a movie out of time, mannered and unconcerned with current trends, and hopelessly unhip. But it’s also beautiful and refreshing in its own earnest, straightforward way. For as ridiculous as Age Of Adaline appears on the surface, it’s surprisingly refined and poised in its execution.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Genevieve Koski
    Monkey Kingdom
    Everything Monkey Kingdom lacks in scientific rigor, it makes up for in pure entertainment value—and then some.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Dior and I
    For all its grand statements about artistry and identity, Dior And I is most effective as a study of the hard work, both physical and emotional, that goes into creating something new.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Furious 7
    What makes Furious 7 a serious contender for the title of Fast franchise highlight—challenged only by 2011’s Fast Five and its unmatched vault-heist sequence—is the way it embraces the series’ most basic pleasures while amplifying everything tenfold.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    Home
    Home feels oddly small-scale for a globe-spanning science-fiction adventure story featuring aliens and flying cars.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 20 Genevieve Koski
    The Divergent Series: Insurgent
    It doesn’t make any sense, but Insurgent demands its audience play along anyway. The problem is, the film doesn’t do enough to earn viewers’ trust, or reward it once it’s given.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Genevieve Koski
    Cinderella
    Most of Cinderella’s costuming and production design takes a “glitter first, taste second” approach that embodies the film’s cotton-candy style of filmmaking: a heady sugar-rush in the moment, but empty and a little nauseating over the long haul.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    The DUFF
    For all its potential pitfalls, The DUFF manages to keep its head above water, thanks to Whitman, Amell, and a willingness to engage with teen-movie clichés in a relatively thoughtful way.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Vessel
    Vessel is much more than a documentary about abortion rights; it’s about the conviction, creativity, and sacrifice that goes into creating a movement.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    Into the Woods
    As a film, Into The Woods is trapped between the stage and the screen, at odds with both its source material and its adopted medium.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    Annie
    When Annie isn’t functioning as a showcase for Wallis’ tiny preternatural charm, it’s tonally varied to the point of discombobulation.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
    The trifecta of Lawrence, Moore, and Hoffman is the movie’s driving force, from both a plot and performance perspective. Together, they imbue Mockingjay with a sense of gravity and significance befitting its tough themes.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Beyond the Lights
    Melodrama is defined by exaggerated characters and events, as well as overt appeals to emotion, and Beyond The Lights fits that mold ably and comfortably. But beneath the shiny surface of music-video imagery and true-loveisms lie some provocative ideas and deep truths about how people relate on a private level vs. a public one.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Big Hero 6
    It ultimately amounts to a feature-length origin story, but with characters this unknown and execution this fun, that’s an asset, not a liability.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    Rudderless
    Rudderless’ biggest flaw is that it’s overly committed to its trajectory, creating obvious cause-and-effect scenarios rather than letting its characters simply live and act within the situation the story places them in.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Genevieve Koski
    Gone Girl
    Gone Girl reveals itself as an optimal meeting of the minds, a perfect amalgam of a writer and a director with complementary fixations.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Genevieve Koski
    Life After Beth
    The misused cast is just one of many examples of the unrealized potential of Life After Beth, a film that has good bones, but not enough meat, guts, or—most damningly for a zombie movie—brains.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Genevieve Koski
    Life Itself
    Death is a part of life—one that informs everything we do, on some level or another—and watching Ebert characterize whatever time he has left as “money in the bank,” from what viewers know is his deathbed, is life-affirming and heartbreaking in equal measure.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    They Came Together
    There are a lot of laughs in They Came Together, but few curveballs. The biggest surprise is that the film feels so safe.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    The Case Against 8
    With its action taking place primarily in the beige-walled, wood-accented environs of legal offices and courthouses, The Case Against 8 compensates for its visual blandness with good old-fashioned storytelling.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Obvious Child
    Despite its attention-grabbing logline and gleeful embrace of raunchy, frequently scatological humor, Obvious Child is at heart a well-realized, straight-ahead rom-com, one with the potential to reinvigorate a genre that’s been flagging for decades.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Genevieve Koski
    Neighbors
    While it’s occasionally distasteful, it’s an engaging hangout film from beginning to end, thanks to its game performances and smart direction.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    Bears
    True to its Disney lineage, Bears is a theme-park version of reality, but one built on sincere understanding of and affection for the natural world and all its creatures—especially the really cute ones.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Genevieve Koski
    Divergent
    At 140 minutes, Divergent is too bloated to be consistently exciting, but it’s relatively agile between its many exposition-dumps, at times resembling an actual action movie more than a pro-forma adaptation.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 70 Genevieve Koski
    Need For Speed
    Need For Speed modifies its outlaw antihero with all sorts of unnecessary pain and backstory, and the film is slow to leave the starting gate because of it. But once it does, Need For Speed becomes a much fleeter vehicle, powered by impressive practical stuntwork, eye-popping cross-country landscapes, and the sparking chemistry between Paul and Poots.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Genevieve Koski
    Winter's Tale
    It’s a greeting card of film, full of platitudes and pleasant imagery, and destined to be thrown in a drawer and forgotten in short order.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Genevieve Koski
    That Awkward Moment
    First-time writer-director Tom Gormican fills his script with jabs at romantic convention, but his story doesn’t attempt to subvert those conventions in any meaningful way.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    Saving Mr. Banks
    Those willing or prone to buy into the idea of “Disney Magic” are likely to choke up at least once or twice over the course of Saving Mr. Banks, while those who resist it—the Traverses of the world—will choke on the heaping spoonfuls of sugar the film ladles onto its story.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Genevieve Koski
    Delivery Man
    Delivery Man has sentiment and affability embedded in its DNA, but Scott and Vaughn don’t do enough to nurture the film to its full potential.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
    It’s not just bigger, it’s better, and it bodes well for the future of the series, if not necessarily of its unlucky protagonist.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Genevieve Koski
    About Time
    That messy sprawl makes for a messy film full of highs and lows, triumphs and regrets... But those willing—or eager—to indulge About Time’s schmaltziest moments are rewarded with hits of pure, uncut joy and sorrow.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Genevieve Koski
    A.C.O.D.
    It’s neither consistently funny nor poignant enough to make the most of its impressive cast, all of whom are capable of delivering better than what A.C.O.D. asks of them.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Genevieve Koski
    Don Jon
    Don Jon is a continuously entertaining and fitfully provocative first-time effort from the longtime actor.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Genevieve Koski
    Mademoiselle C
    More of a fawning love letter than a nuanced profile of a woman who surely must be more fascinating than she comes off here.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Genevieve Koski
    One Direction: This Is Us
    Even with all the SFX overlays, it’s questionable whether any of this is entertaining enough to sustain even a svelte 92-minute runtime, but Spurlock and the boys can’t be faulted for holding back.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 40 Genevieve Koski
    The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
    There’s a germ of something interesting and different within the film’s narrative tangle, but it’s unfortunately been subsumed by Hollywood’s dedication to replicating previous successes.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Genevieve Koski
    We're the Millers
    While the setups are often laughably forced—two words: “weed baby”—the script navigates its way out of them relatively gracefully, and sometimes hilariously.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Genevieve Koski
    Turbo
    There’s nothing remotely revolutionary about Turbo’s underdog-sports narrative, but that’s okay—it’s one of the sturdiest plots in film for a reason—and the film’s emotional beats are no less potent for being expected, thanks to the ground-level focus on the human-snail relationships that fuel them.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Genevieve Koski
    Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain
    The Kevin Hart brand is clearly doing well, but Let Me Explain doesn’t seem interested in providing anything more than a surface-level presentation of the product.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Genevieve Koski
    Robin Hood: Men in Tights
    A decent-enough inroad to one of film history’s most respected parodists.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Genevieve Koski
    The Americanization of Emily
    The Americanization Of Emily is a very funny, modern-seeming film.

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