Jacob Oller

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Paste Magazine, The A.V. Club, The Film Stage
For 358 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 35% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 62% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Jacob Oller's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 91 In the Heights
Lowest review score: 0 Five Nights at Freddy's 2
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 204 out of 358
  2. Mixed: 113 out of 358
  3. Negative: 41 out of 358
358 movie reviews
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    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Jacob Oller
    Zodiac Killer Project
    For those who haven’t really thought about the filmmaking behind the glut of true-crime clogging up the streamer carousels, there are some revelatory moments of media criticism in here. But for those more aware of how the sausage is made, it’s simply a light and dry bit of jabbing at a dominant kind of media.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Jacob Oller
    The Scout
    The Scout is as pretty-gloomy as an off day in New York, as winning as a good work anecdote, as defeating as another day on the job, and as listless as a generation starting to feel the shadow of their looming midlife crisis.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Jacob Oller
    City of Gold
    City of Gold is simultaneously a vibrant, colorful love letter to the unsung parts of Los Angeles, a populist philosophy of food and culture, and a thesis on what criticism should be.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Jacob Oller
    The Long Walk
    Despite the stamping of hundreds of feet, The Long Walk smolders with the blunt power of a burned flag.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Jacob Oller
    Mickey 17
    Messy as it is, the filmmaking so energetically delivers its acidic pessimism that it’s rarely unpleasant.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Jacob Oller
    Nine Days
    Nine Days marks Oda as one of our most exciting new directors, a filmmaker possessing an innovative cinematic mind with a heart to match.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Jacob Oller
    Power
    When Power sticks to its experts, its case is compellingly assembled, its points lucidly made (backed up with archival images) and its unspoken importance undeniable.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Jacob Oller
    The Outwaters
    The Outwaters’ chthonic calling card showcases a jack-of-all-trades horror artist, even when it’s more upsetting than scary, but its labyrinth can quickly feel like a straight line, skillfully obscured.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 89 Jacob Oller
    Saturday Church
    Half musical and half drama, it finds balance in poetic stillness and exuberant motion.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 82 Jacob Oller
    Candyman
    While the kills, perpetrated by a being mostly just seen in mirrors, are sometimes a bit too obfuscated by their gimmick to be viscerally satisfying, they slot in perfectly with the film’s themes and aesthetic even when they’re not dumping cascades of blood.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Jacob Oller
    A Compassionate Spy
    A Compassionate Spy is not a thrilling recollection of treason. It has little to say about the actual espionage that Hall pulled off when he was an 18-year-old Harvard grad working on the Manhattan Project.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 79 Jacob Oller
    Watcher
    Watcher flourishes as it complicates its premise beyond the unknowable and faceless desires of a shadowy silhouette.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 79 Jacob Oller
    The Suicide Squad
    Gunn and crew have made that vibe, alternating between inventive and bloody battle and ballbusting hang-out sesh, their delightful spandex hallmark—and The Suicide Squad’s intensification of it from the GotG films feels like it’s been let loose on a particularly rowdy vacation.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 74 Jacob Oller
    Late Night with the Devil
    Thanks to its commitment to the ‘70s made-for-TV bit, ever-escalating stakes and nervously swaggering lead performance, the ratings ploy from Hell finds substance inside its shtick.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Jacob Oller
    Raging Fire
    Despite a few moments of heightened bliss that remind us what kind of talent it has in front of the camera (and the operatic possibilities of Hong Kong action), Raging Fire’s dull discussion of policing never lights a fire.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 68 Jacob Oller
    The Batman
    The Batman is ambitious and dedicated to its vision, but despite some rather obvious clues, it can’t crack how to make the World’s Greatest Detective seem like one at all. Rather, we just have another passable Batman, not different enough to outrun his legacy’s ever-growing shadow.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Jacob Oller
    Mogul Mowgli
    Ahmed’s intimate performance and Tariq’s intense framing lend Mogul Mowgli a raw power that’s heady, heavy and a little heavy-handed.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 59 Jacob Oller
    Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    The main attractions for Marvel’s Ten Ring circus are better when freed from the MCU’s captivity.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Jacob Oller
    Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie
    Its predictability is pleasingly colored by countless icky-fun, yokai-inspired curse-monsters.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 68 Jacob Oller
    Spider-Man: No Way Home
    After so long playing with the legacy and impact of Spider-Man, No Way Home finds its way back.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Jacob Oller
    Exit 8
    Exit 8 excels at capturing that isolation and disaffection in an elegant environmental ouroboros, though what it does once it establishes its atmosphere never matches that simple artistry.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 32 Jacob Oller
    Brad's Status
    Every creative problem White gives himself receives the most boring, trite solution, each chance for artistry stifled by mediocrity.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Jacob Oller
    A Quiet Place Part II
    A charmingly unambitious, ultimately enjoyable step down of a sequel: A controlled expansion where novelty fades to reveal technical prowess and contempt starts peeking out behind familiarity.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Jacob Oller
    Theater Camp
    If you’re down for a light comedy with a very specific audience, pitched somewhere between Wet Hot American Summer and John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch, AdirondACTS welcomes you (and your prepared monologue—you did prepare a monologue, right?) with open arms.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 72 Jacob Oller
    I Care a Lot
    Some of the film’s punchy dialogue pops us on the nose now and again with its Themes (specifically its notes on sexism and the American Dream), but if you’re willing to look past that and a contrived half-hour detour, I Care A Lot is a savvy and wicked endeavor peppered with personality.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 79 Jacob Oller
    Resurrection
    Writer/director Andrew Semans’ sophomore feature pulses with black-hearted humor and cruelties so odd as to be undeniably believable, but it’s Hall’s expressive transformation that drives the film’s blood into its final manic fever.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Jacob Oller
    Nakom
    The film builds to its conclusion without building its main character.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Jacob Oller
    Monkey Man
    Monkey Man is the kind of action movie I want to see more of, and it gives Patel the chance to turn himself into the kind of action star he wants to see.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Jacob Oller
    Brother
    There is power in the inescapable, in the dreaded endpoint of becoming news after a lifetime spent fearing it—mourning it. But despite its length and artistic competence, Brother’s lack of affecting specificity displays rather than embodys grief.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 78 Jacob Oller
    Before, Now & Then
    Violence, political strife, marital problems—the world keeps on turning, but Before, Now & Then explores what’s needed to hold steady through it all.
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