Hal Hinson

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Washington Post
For 420 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 44% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 55% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 8.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Hal Hinson's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 Hoop Dreams
Lowest review score: 0 Johnny Be Good
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 174 out of 420
  2. Mixed: 166 out of 420
  3. Negative: 80 out of 420
420 movie reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    My Twentieth Century
    My 20th Century is like a dream, without a unifying logic -- ravishing fragments without coherence or meaning. Immersed somewhere in all this are Enyedi's meditations on the true nature of women, the shortcomings of 20th-century progress, and the connections between art and science. Yet though her own inventiveness and witty command of the medium are invigorating, her thinking is so scrambled that her originality is undermined. The movie is overintellectualized and yet not fully thought out.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    La Bamba
    La Bamba is a puzzle -- a real mixed bag. Some of it, like the braying, cock-and-bull performance by Esai Morales, is just plain awful. But other bits, like the performances by Rosana De Soto and, as Ritchie's agent, Joe Pantoliano, are unexpectedly vibrant.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael
    Where the movie sabotages her, though, is by insisting that all she really wants is to be like everyone else.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Heat
    Ultimately, though, the movie never transcends the limitations of its Hemingwayesque, men-with-men attitudes.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Talk Radio
    There's no question that the bigotry and shallowness exist out there in the American night, but there's no proportion in Stone's presentation. Stone strains too hard to make his points and in the process distorts them, undermines them. Still, Stone would probably be proud that he's made a picture that audiences may want to ward off and escape from. In that sense, he seems to see himself as being just like Champlain -- a teller of stern and disquieting truths.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Bram Stoker's Dracula
    Dracula, which also stars Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and Anthony Hopkins, is an evocative visual feast. But the meal is spectral, without the dramatic equivalent of nutritional value.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Lock Up
    The film is a sort of prison fantasy, in which all the most popular boys in the cellblock have a high time together, smoking cigarettes, working on cars and spraying each other with paint guns...All the while you're thinking, "What is this, ancient Greece?"
    • 40 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    The Believers
    A bizarre, occult thriller about the implications of religious faith. And, though it doesn't expand upon its shock tactics as much as it would like to or make its theological points, the movie's dread atmosphere begins to seep into your head.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    The Client
    Unfortunately, the film rarely slows long enough for the actors to do anything more than sketch in their characters. On the other hand, the showdowns between Sarandon and Jones are choice; it's a meeting of charismatic equals.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Empire of the Sun
    Though Empire of the Sun is a profoundly perplexing, frustrating object, there are things in it to marvel at and enjoy.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    True Believer
    True Believer is a thriller about moral rejuvenation, and there's not much wrong with it that another actor in the lead wouldn't cure.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Poison
    Todd Haynes's Poison is a vision of unrelenting, febrile darkness. It presents three disparate stories in three greatly varied styles, all inspired by the work of Jean Genet, and its effect, as a whole, is like that of an especially vile infection; it moves diabolically through your system, spreading fever and nausea as it goes.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Born on the Fourth of July
    This is an impassioned movie, made with conviction and evangelical verve. It's also hysterical and overbearing and alienating.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Batman Forever
    Sometimes thrilling, but rarely inspired, it is thoroughly-almost perfectly-adequate.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Last Action Hero
    The movie isn't mindless; it just has a mind that's a bit junky and muddled. And to their credit, Arnold and his collaborators haven't played it safe. Last Action Hero is a stretch. Unfortunately, it's a stretch that proves the star wasn't that elastic to begin with.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Clockers
    The central story itself is not distinctive, and though Lee certainly churns up a lot of dust, he never captures the mythic quality that made Price's original seem so much bigger than its almost generic cast of players.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    My Life as a Dog
    The movie has some beautifully observed moments and a generous spirit, but in the end, it's undone by its own sweetness and charm....It's just not distinctive enough to sustain your interest. A lot of the movie is routine coming-of-age stuff.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    The movie is a mess from start to finish. But then again, this jerky, haphazard approach is part of the movie's goofy charm.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Things Change
    The movie is modest and winning, and we almost feel guilty for wanting it to be more -- but we do. The spirit of camaraderie and the love of performers performing is infectious, though. It may not be enough, but it's close.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    After Dark, My Sweet
    Dern's dirtball performance gives After Dark, My Sweet a desperately needed quality of slugged-out authenticity -- he gives the movie its edge. If anything, though, Foley makes Thompson's killing universe too inviting, too sunny and comfortable. He's missed the essence of Thompson, but all in all, there are worse ways of failing.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Poetic Justice
    It's more a brave movie than it is a good one, but at least Singleton has faced the unknown. And he deserves credit for the attempt.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    I Love You to Death
    Despite its mixture of macabre slapstick and broadly stroked caricatures, the film has sleepy-time rhythms; it's easily the pokiest farce I've ever seen.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    My Girl
    Watching it, you can't quite figure out what the movie's audience is supposed to be. For parents and kids hoping for a Macaulay Culkin movie, a rude shock awaits. Also, the movie's themes may be too sophisticated for younger audiences; it deals, after all, with death and recovery. And yet, the treatment of these issues may be too pat for adults. It's an entertaining, often winning, movie, but you can't help but feel that the filmmakers never settled on what sort of movie they wanted to make.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    The Little Mermaid
    The Little Mermaid is only passable. Even at its highest points, it cannot claim a place next to even the least of the great Disney classics.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Quigley Down Under
    What's missing in Quigley Down Under is precisely what is missing in its star. Selleck is a skilled light comedian -- he's at his best delivering a wry put-down to a British officer -- and he handles John Hill's bantering dialogue deftly. But for all his burly authority, Selleck lacks dynamism on screen. There's no danger in him, nothing unresolved or mysterious. He's likable, but something of a lug.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    The Arrival
    For better or for worse the movie belongs to Sheen, who does manage to generate enough intensity to hold writer-director David Twohy's unwieldy story together. [31 May 1996, p.D6]
    • Washington Post
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    The Three Musketeers
    It's a brisk, colorful, infectiously charming but instantly disposable Hollywood entertainment. It's fun, like watching kids play dress-up in the back yard -- nothing more, nothing less.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Madonna: Truth or Dare
    Madonna, the real Madonna, is precisely what "Truth or Dare" promises to deliver, raw, kissing-close and uncensored. But what we get in this sometimes engrossing, sometimes appalling, always entertaining film is something other than "real," something that may in fact be just as revealing as the real thing itself.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    La scorta (re-release)
    Ultimately, La Scorta is a tight, competent but rather inconsequential thriller. It's diverting, but thin. (Review of Original Release)
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Hal Hinson
    Coming to America
    Coming to America isn't as aggressively awful as the "Cop" films or "The Golden Child," but at least in those films there was something to react to. In making Coming to America, Murphy seems to have set his sights on the lowest prize imaginable. He aspires to blandness.
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