Jared Mobarak

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The Film Stage
For 635 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 65% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 31% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.7 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Jared Mobarak's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Moonlight
Lowest review score: 25 The Dark Below
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 464 out of 635
  2. Mixed: 153 out of 635
  3. Negative: 18 out of 635
635 movie reviews
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    • 62 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Not Okay
    Is the tonal marriage perfect between the over-the-top hijinks about the gross commodification of “wokeness” and melodramatic exposure of the cost those actually fighting must pay as a result? No. In many instances it seems Shephard does want us to pity Danni (Deutch’s performance almost deserves it too once she finds a conscience hiding below her vanity) despite her endgame proving the opposite.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Annabelle Comes Home
    While humor is present (to varying effect) thanks to its teenage protagonists and its roller coaster ride of random encounters does prove more unhinged than The Conjuring‘s streamlined confrontational drama, it still revolves around intimately personal battles independently fought within Judy and Daniela.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Sand Castle
    Roessner hasn’t written an anti-war or pro-war film. Sand Castle merely shows the honesty of war’s infinite complexities.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Man Underground
    The journey is ultimately as sweetly funny as it’s emotionally tragic.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Handsome Devil
    Butler’s film may be beholden to certain clichéd conventions and formulaic familiarity in its progression, but its characters evolve within them with an authenticity that dismisses such convenience as a way of life.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Where Hands Touch
    Despite moments that risk subverting the vile treachery of Nazis in a bid to humanize this would-be soldier underneath his uniform, Asante refuses to erase the complexity of the situation at hand.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Sissy
    Barlow and Senes do a great job keeping things entertaining and plausible insofar as how casualties cross the path of their killers.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    The Night Eats the World
    The Night Eats the World gazes upon what’s left of society through a lens of pragmatism. It acknowledges that humanity is barely beating back its own extinction, that survivors are the minority and therefore minutes from oblivion if they cannot adapt.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Mystery Road
    I won’t lie and say Mystery Road kept me on the edge of my seat for its duration, but there is a lot to enjoy in its delicately peeled back layers.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Piercing
    Pesce is meticulously constructing the perfect murder only to systematically dismantle it for devilish fun. Maybe it’s a spoiler to call Piercing a comedy, but that’s exactly what it is.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Geographies of Solitude
    Sable becomes a nexus point of preservation and destruction. Lucas captures it all as data while Mills unleashes the artistry of those numbers courtesy of sight and sound. Beauty lives in death. Suffering is born from life. Everything is connected.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    The Immaculate Room
    The Immaculate Room isn’t breaking the mold on this type of conceit; if anything it’s purposely embracing a narrow scope of mental fracturing the scenario can ignite and counting on the actors to make it compelling.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    No Sleep Till
    Alexandra Simpson’s No Sleep Till plays out in a slice-of-life documentarian style. It’s a quiet piece with gorgeous images (kudos to cinematographer Sylvain Froidevaux) and interesting characters engaged in the seemingly wild juxtapositions inherent to maintaining a mundane status quo through the uncertainty of impending chaos.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    The Purge: Election Year
    DeMonaco has his finger on the pulse of our struggle and has found a way to put it onscreen as all good horror does. Sure he and Jason Blum are making money, but you cannot deny they aren’t also forcing us to acknowledge the social science at play.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Mr. Toilet: The World's #2 Man
    It’s often inspiring.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Why Don't You Just Die!
    These people are so greedily narcissistic that the best fun lies in what they’re willing to do to each other and how they react upon realizing that truth.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Approaching the Unknown
    Credit Rosenberg for keeping things ambiguous because it does make the film more interesting. Without this lingering sense of potential artifice, Approaching the Unknown becomes a slow-moving descent into acceptance — not quite a riveting plot with the suspenseful intrigue a descent into madness brings.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    The Contractor
    While billed as an action film, The Contractor proves more suspense thriller in the end.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    The Little Things
    The case here is secondary to the lengths its protagonists will go to solve it. It’s about the paranoia that builds when a lead seems good and the demons that take control of our actions once the system proves ill-equipped to dole out the justice we “know” to be deserved.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    The Night
    As a journey inward into the roiling waves of memory and regret, Ahari fulfills his promise with an unapologetic air of penance and disgrace. That its success happens despite his exploitation of Neda as a character and woman doesn’t, however, negate that egregious misstep. And the latter being highly triggering unfortunately renders any blind recommendation of the former a reckless proposition.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Stockholm
    As a comedy with a good-natured soul doing bad things to earn his surrogate brother freedom, Stockholm is a success.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Then Came You
    There are some solid supporting performances in small dramatic doses (Koechner, Hochlin, and Walger) and comedic ones too (Jeong, Venskus, and Tituss Burgess do well in mostly thankless roles), but the topline trio is where Then Came You is at its best.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    What Still Remains
    By fast-forwarding through the initial carnage and fallout of what civilization’s destruction wrought, Mendoza is able to create a fresh environment of extremes.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Holler
    We feel the futility of this reality with every exasperated sigh Blaze lets loose and defeated look that escapes Ruth’s usually stoic demeanor.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Army of One
    The biggest draw is watching Cage embrace a character with the unironic comedic flair we haven’t seen from him in quite some time, but it only works effectively if he’s able to balance the realization that Gary Faulkner isn’t a joke.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Embattled
    Don’t expect to find yourself on track to the usual happy ending—or usual sad one for that matter. Many of the stops will seem familiar, but the ways in which they’re experienced are authentic and perhaps even surprising.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Never Here
    Thoman spins a suspense thriller with all its genre underpinnings around Miranda to take the control she’s always carefully ensured was hers away.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Great White
    The acting is good (Jakubenko and Bowden’s relationship feels especially real), the effects are great (moving above and below the waterline to show shark and lifeboat is a nice cinematic touch), and the suspense effectively earned my investment. This film might just surprise you too.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    Kill
    Just let the rage unleash in whatever convenient way is necessary to get the blood flowing faster. What’s good enough for John Wick should be good enough for Kill, so wake the boogeyman up and let him loose. Because we’re all here for the brutality anyway. There’s no point pretending otherwise.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Jared Mobarak
    The Kid Detective
    It’s a good role for Brody by simultaneously feeding on the typecast nature of him being neurotic Seth Cohen from The O.C. and rejecting it by toning down the sarcasm and replacing it with fatigue.
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