Geoff Berkshire

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Los Angeles Times, Variety, Zap2it (Inside the Box)
For 146 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 36% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 59% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 13.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Geoff Berkshire's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 52
Highest review score: 100 Columbus
Lowest review score: 10 The Ultimate Life
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 51 out of 146
  2. Mixed: 55 out of 146
  3. Negative: 40 out of 146
146 movie reviews
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    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    The Wretched
    What the Pierce brothers lack in flavorful storytelling or compelling characters, they almost entirely make up for in good old-fashioned atmosphere and suspense. The Wretched rarely surprises, but it’s well-crafted enough to get under your skin anyway, with an able assist from the creepy camerawork of cinematographer Conor Murphy and unsettling score by Devin Burrows.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    Daniel Isn't Real
    In supporting roles of varying importance, Masterson, Sasha Lane and Hannah Marks do enough to suggest the film would have been better off giving them more. But Daniel Isn’t Real remains a two-man show, and Robbins and Schwarzenegger are an odd couple worth believing in.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Burn Your Maps
    It's all very strange and more than a bit silly, but somehow — even as characters travel halfway around the world — the plot never journeys anywhere that surprising.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    Tell It to the Bees
    Paquin, in one of her strongest performances since The Piano, and especially Grainger (best known for a substantial résumé of British television) shoulder the film’s dramatic burdens with grace and ease. They’re a pleasure to watch. But the unassumingly square and overly familiar film simply isn’t the buzzworthy vehicle their work deserves.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    Don't Leave Home
    Eerie and haunting without ever being outright scary, Don't Leave Home is different enough from current trends in horror to be of at least some interest to hardcore genre buffs.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Blood Fest
    The ensuing abundant gore is simultaneously gleeful and nonsensical as the filmmakers rope in so many monsters — from seductive vampires to routine zombies to killer clowns — the entire movie becomes literal overkill.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Katie Says Goodbye
    Even if first-time writer-director Wayne Roberts is sympathetic to the plight he’s chosen for the protagonist, his film never burrows deep enough under her skin to make the string of miserable scenarios connect in a meaningful way.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    All Nighter
    The part may be tailor-made for Simmons’ no-nonsense persona, and his performance reliably rock solid, but the bland execution of director Gavin Wiesen and the uninspired scripting of Seth Owen have no comic zing.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    Little Boxes
    Even as some of the supporting players and subplots veer toward caricature, the family dynamics at the film’s center remain entirely relatable.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    The Comedian
    Even with a bona fide icon at its center, The Comedian doesn’t dig deep enough to add anything substantial to the subgenre.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Trash Fire
    The performers are mostly out to sea without a paddle trying to make sense of hateful characters, but Trimbur at least shows some comic spark and strikes a few sympathetic notes.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    The Land
    The Land feels a few drafts away from succeeding on its own terms. Still, there’s enough on screen, beyond Lendeborg’s confident star turn, to label Caple as a filmmaker to watch.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    X-Men: Apocalypse
    Although the X-Men ensembles are usually large, there are simply too many characters for the action-heavy “Apocalypse” to properly juggle.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
    Every bit as sitcom-ish and saccharine as its predecessor, but considerably less distinctive.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Miracles from Heaven
    In a welcome gender reversal from the father-son dynamic of “Heaven Is for Real,” Garner and Rogers deliver fully committed performances that credibly convey the physical and mental anguish endured by sick children and their caregivers.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Hyena Road
    This is the kind of movie where a major development in a character’s personal life instantly telegraphs his ultimate fate in the trenches.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Joshy
    Joshy offers a strange mix of elements that never quite add up.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    The Fundamentals of Caring
    Solid performances and some genuinely sharp humor elevate writer-director Rob Burnett’s second feature.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Naz & Maalik
    The intense focus on the two lead characters emerges as both a strength and a weakness. There’s a lot of walking and talking, and what begins as rather charming ultimately turns tedious, even with a fleet 80-minute running time before closing credits factor in.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Jem and the Holograms
    Against all odds, “Nashville” series regular Peeples keeps the film watchable, delivering a capable star turn with enough flashes of soul to belie the script’s artifice and credible pop vocals to boot.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Goosebumps
    The ADD overload combined with an understandably kid-friendly approach to horror (no one’s ever in real danger, and the monsters are never too scary) results in a disposable product intended to appeal to everyone but likely to resonate with no one.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    Captive
    Although Captive largely succeeds as a two-hander, it stumbles in the minimal attempts to broaden the scope beyond Smith and Nichols’ time together.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    The Visit
    Shyamalan has long been criticized for serving up borderline (or downright) silly premises with a straight face and overtly pretentious atmosphere, but he basically abandons that approach here in favor of a looser, more playful dynamic between his fresh-faced leads.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Zipper
    Tawdry but cripplingly self-serious, the second feature from Mora Stephens (a full decade after her little-seen, also politically themed debut “Conventioneers”) benefits from Patrick Wilson’s committed star turn.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Max
    It’s too bad the film doesn’t provide a better sense of what makes the Belgian Malinois so uniquely suited to the battlefield, or find a way to pay more than lip service to the deep bonds developed between military men and animals.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    The Midnight Swim
    For much of the running time, The Midnight Swim is effectively ambiguous, but Smith’s decision to play coy with the sisters’ backstories eventually frustrates.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Cut Bank
    Watching an estimable quintet of character actors do their thing is the chief pleasure of Cut Bank.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    Sleeping with Other People
    Headland demonstrated little interest in playing it safe with her previous film... But here she reins in that impulse almost too much, and Sleeping With Other People winds up both looking (with its adequate but unremarkable tech package) and often feeling like a run-of-the-mill studio comedy.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Loitering with Intent
    Loitering With Intent is essentially a 75-minute hangout movie, which would work better if the characters were worth hanging out with.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Penguins of Madagascar
    The graceful camerawork, precise editing and high-quality animation still can’t disguise the lack of imagination that went into the overall conception and the repetitive sameness that creeps into every bind the penguins find themselves in.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Comet
    Lapses in the screenplay are mitigated only slightly by the natural chemistry between Long and Rossum.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Addicted
    The sudsy quality of the production ensures all the performers look terrific, but aren’t given particularly impressive material to work with.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Inner Demons
    The goofiness is redeemed somewhat by a wickedly violent climax — the exclamation point at the end of a rather simple sentence.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    The Scribbler
    Despite a game lead performance from smallscreen star Katie Cassidy (“Arrow”) as a young woman with multiple personality disorder and an incorrigible punk attitude, this latest low-budget outing from helmer John Suits simply doesn’t have the imagination or resources necessary to pull off its clumsy stabs at visual pizzazz.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    Take Me to the River
    Take Me to the River compensates for a lack of originality and depth with no shortage of joyful celebration.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Drunktown's Finest
    Unfortunately, Drunktown’s Finest too often suffers from stilted performances and scripting.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Young Ones
    The sophomore effort from Jake Paltrow (“The Good Night”) gets so bogged down in its primal tale of murder and revenge that the most intriguing elements become little more than futuristic window dressing.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Finding Fela!
    While the filmed stage performances are among the pic’s most galvanizing sequences, their inclusion underscores how flat Gibney’s combination of archival footage and talking-head interviews otherwise plays.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Earth to Echo
    Earth to Echo reaches for the stars with its gentle sci-fi shenanigans, but the rote result remains decidedly earthbound.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    DamNation
    The film’s haphazard focus muddies the waters without doing anything to clarify the overall stakes. Fortunately, the continual visual splendors make a rather striking argument of their own.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    The Signal
    Exceedingly stylish and ultimately quite silly, The Signal is a sci-fi head trip better appreciated for the journey than the destination.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Bottled Up
    A terminally quirky indie dramedy, Bottled Up risks trivializing prescription drug abuse in service of a trite middle-age romance.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 60 Geoff Berkshire
    Brightest Star
    Brightest Star, has all the trappings of a contemporary romantic comedy, but also the good sense to strive for a deeper examination of a young man’s search for his place in the universe.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    If You Build It
    A bittersweet ending offers both victory and defeat, but closes on a note of hard-won optimism.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
    An alternately enchanting and exhausting anime adventure in which cutesy characters and peppy vocal turns belie a darker, angst-ridden narrative.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Sugar
    Its compassion and careful sidestepping of exploitation tropes can’t make up for a fundamental lack of depth and urgency in the storytelling.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Why We Ride
    The lovingly crafted documentary Why We Ride ultimately chokes on the fumes of bombastic self-seriousness.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Machete Kills
    As violent as its predecessor yet noticeably duller and less outrageous, Machete Kills is dragged to the finish line entirely by its director’s madcap energy and an absurd cast of major stars in strange cameos.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Arise
    Despite an impressive global scope and admirable ethnic diversity among the interview subjects, the central thesis that women are leading the charge on green issues receives nothing but anecdotal support.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    +1
    Carefully repeated imagery, in-camera tricks and well-executed fx combine to create a tantalizing visual puzzle that demands full attention, even as the flavorless characters and largely so-so performances risk audience indifference.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Spark: A Burning Man Story
    "Spark” remains a lovingly made and shot tease, designed to ensure that what really happens at Burning Man stays at Burning Man.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    A.C.O.D.
    The ensemble’s crack comic timing can only go so far to compensate for uneven scripting.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    Fruitvale Station
    Even if every word of Coogler’s account of the last day in Grant’s life held up under close scrutiny, the film would still ring false in its relentlessly positive portrayal of its subject.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Geoff Berkshire
    Paranormal Activity 4
    Less reliant on slow-burn suspense and larded with fake-out jump scares, this is the first sequel in the series that fails to advance the overall mythology in any meaningful way.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Geoff Berkshire
    The Possession
    A ho-hum exorcism chiller that tries to spice up a formulaic screenplay by converting a predominantly Catholic-fixated horror subgenre to Judaism.

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