Jay Boyar

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Orlando Sentinel
For 396 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 56% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Jay Boyar's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 64
Highest review score: 100 The Age of Innocence
Lowest review score: 0 Revenge
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 209 out of 396
  2. Mixed: 140 out of 396
  3. Negative: 47 out of 396
396 movie reviews
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    • 43 Metascore
    • 25 Jay Boyar
    City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold
    City Slickers II is not merely one of the worst movies of the year. It's one of the worst movie sequels of all time - and, by the way, one of the least necessary. [10 June 1994, p.21]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Jay Boyar
    The Little Mermaid
    Fun-and-fin-filled feature-length Disney cartoon that revitalized the studio's animation department.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Jay Boyar
    Kika
    Kika is flamboyant and provocative. But the new film, which was partly inspired by the rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, is ultimately quite serious.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Jay Boyar
    Stella
    No one looks particularly comfortable, not even Midler, who has most of the best dialogue. She's watchable as Stella, but that's really the nicest thing I can say for her work in this unfortunate picture. Does Bette Midler really believe that people of limited means can't raise their kids decently? Or is the Divine Miss M making some great joke whose subtle point I am failing to grasp?
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Jay Boyar
    Carlito's Way
    Imagine the most exciting parts of The Fugitive but filmed with real moviemaking brio by director Brian De Palma (The Untouchables). [12 Nov 1993, p.20]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Jay Boyar
    Fallen
    A creep-out with style to spare. [16 Jan 1998, p.19]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 54 Metascore
    • 37 Jay Boyar
    Life Stinks
    For the most part, Life Stinks is about as far from art - or even simple entertainment - as you can get. And if I may be forgiven a small joke that's as true as it is obvious, most of the time Life Stinks stinks. [30 July 1991, p.E1]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Jay Boyar
    Nine Months
    Nine Months does have its problems, but it also has its moments, mainly thanks to a truly remarkable cast. [12 July 1995, p.E1]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Jay Boyar
    After Dark, My Sweet
    What really holds the movie together is Rachel Ward's exceptionally moving portrayal of Fay. [07 Sep 1990, p.7]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 28 Metascore
    • 20 Jay Boyar
    Steel
    "Steel" isn't offensively exploitative, just awkward, goofy and terminally sluggish. But then, how fast-paced could a movie be whose central character clumps around in 75 pounds of body armor? [15 Aug 1997]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 36 Metascore
    • 25 Jay Boyar
    Striking Distance
    This is ugly. [20 Sept 1993, p.D2]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Boyar
    Oscar
    Fifteen years ago Sylvester Stallone starred in a movie called Rocky, which won an Oscar. Now he is starring in a movie called Oscar that is, well, a little rocky. [29 Apr 1991, p.D1]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Jay Boyar
    The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
    The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is a serious film, but is it a great one? Not as far as I'm concerned. Overall, I'd say it's only pretty good, though parts of it are much better than that. [30 Apr 1990, p.D1]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 45 Metascore
    • 75 Jay Boyar
    The Little Rascals
    To her credit, Spheeris elicits winning performances from most of the kids. [05 Aug 1994, p.6]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Jay Boyar
    Husbands and Wives
    What I like best about Husbands and Wives is that for the first time in a long time, Allen seems to be experimenting.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Jay Boyar
    The Trigger Effect
    Writer-director David Koepp (Carlito's Way, Jurassic Park) certainly knows how to hold an audience's attention. [30 Aug 1996, p.15]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Jay Boyar
    Career Opportunities
    Like Home Alone, Career Opportunities is inoffensive, breezy and contains a funny cameo appearance by John Candy. The new film starts out well but falls apart midway because the serviceable situations that Hughes and director Bryan Gordon set up don't much go anywhere.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Jay Boyar
    Color of Night
    Color me dissatisfied with Color of Night. For starters, it's a murder mystery with a really obvious solution. How obvious? It's so embarrassingly obvious that even I figured it out - and I can never figure these things out.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Jay Boyar
    Ridicule
    Witty, sharp and, ultimately, chastening, Ridicule is a terrific movie in the sinuous tradition of Dangerous Liaisons (1988). [31 Jan 1997]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Jay Boyar
    A League of Their Own
    This superficially engaging movie leads you to expect something more - something that would suggest how the experience of playing professional ball changed the lives of the women in the league, and how the league itself may have helped to alter the general public's notions of women and sports.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Boyar
    My Girl
    Most of the names in My Girl are meant to seem a little peculiar. In fact, everything in My Girl is meant to seem a little peculiar. Which, I would say, is the problem with the movie. When eccentricity becomes as insistent as it does here, it's not really eccentricity any more, it's affectation. My Girl, which opens today, is a festival of affectation. [27 Nov 1991, p.E1]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 37 Metascore
    • 25 Jay Boyar
    Cutthroat Island
    Cutthroat Island isn't so much a movie as it is a burial at sea. As a longtime Geena Davis fan, I hope she won't go down with the ship. [22 Dec 1995, p.M10]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Boyar
    Switch
    Barkin's performance is so detailed that it becomes a little essay about the physical differences between men and women. Too bad that this modern woman's performance is trapped in the movie of an old-fashioned man. [10 May 1991, p.6]
    • Orlando Sentinel
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Jay Boyar
    The Lawnmower Man
    The Lawnmower Man has it all - melodramatic plot, bad acting, special effects that will undoubtedly seem cheesy in about five minutes and even a concluding sequence in which the usual lofty moral is voiced.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Jay Boyar
    Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter)
    Altman's method is risky, but when inspiration strikes the result can be wonderful. When it doesn't, the result can be, well, Ready to Wear.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 Jay Boyar
    Cobb
    Shelton's approach in Cobb is stunningly successful and also very funny, in a jolting, in-your-face sort of way. Instead of taking the usual sports-biopic tack of glorifying his subject, he digs deep into the dirt of the athlete's life and somehow comes up with a weird sort of anti-glory glory.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Jay Boyar
    The Jungle Book
    A routine action drama, Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book contains qualities of both forgettability and painlessness.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Jay Boyar
    No Mercy
    In the final analysis, the action-picture mechanics of the film are too limiting. No Mercy barely has a subject, much less a theme. Yet moments from the picture linger in the mind. If you don't leave the theater satisfied, you may at least be moved.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Jay Boyar
    Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
    Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome isn't a bad movie. It has entertaining sections, decent performances and more than a few provocative images. But it also has a major shortcoming: It's too darned sane.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Jay Boyar
    The Nightmare Before Christmas
    The boldest of Burton's creatures is bogyman Oogie Boogie (Ken Page), a burlap sack of vermin who terrorizes Santa (Ed Ivory). His big boogie-woogie number - a day-glo dance of death called ''Oogie Boogie's Song'' - is so horrifyingly grand that it threatens to steal the show from even the cleverly phantasmagorial ''This Is Halloween'' and the darkly bright (yes, I know that sounds impossible) ''What's This?,'' which pop up early in the film.
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