Joe Leydon

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Variety
For 872 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 8.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Joe Leydon's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 No Greater Love
Lowest review score: 0 Movie 43
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 363 out of 872
  2. Mixed: 380 out of 872
  3. Negative: 129 out of 872
872 movie reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    Chicken People
    An illuminating and amusingly entertaining look at the thriving subculture of competitive poultry breeders.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 60 Joe Leydon
    On the Line
    Perfectly harmless, often humorous, featherweight confection -- think "Serendipity" re-imagined as a teen-skewing Saturday morning sitcom.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    Thunder Soul
    Mark Landsman's spirited Thunder Soul offers a heaping helping of uplift while documenting the past triumphs and recent reunion of a predominantly black Houston high school's singularly accomplished jazz stage band.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Joe Leydon
    Meeting Evil
    The picture could provide modest amusement for indulgent viewers with a taste for tales of loquacious killers and not-so-innocent bystanders.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Joe Leydon
    Madea's Witness Protection
    The interaction among opposites inspires an abundance of predictable race-based jokes, many of which have the saving grace of actually being funny.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Joe Leydon
    Junebug
    Has a washed-out look that may be off-putting to auds who might otherwise enjoy the pic's uncondescending view of Southern characters and customs.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Joe Leydon
    The Wendell Baker Story
    A loose-knit, character-driven comedy that percolates with good-vibe amusement, often earning industrial-strength guffaws with sneaky one-liners and tossed-off non-sequiturs.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Joe Leydon
    Lucky
    Everything Harry Dean Stanton has done in his career, and his life, has brought him to his moment of triumph in “Lucky,” an unassumingly wonderful little film about nothing in particular and everything that’s important
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Joe Leydon
    Demon
    Up until its unfortunate third-act detour from intriguing verisimilitude to frustrating abstraction, director Marcin Wrona’s Demon enthralls as an atmospheric ghost story with a cheeky undercurrent of absurdist humor.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    Linoleum
    Consider this review primarily as an encouragement: Stick around. Your patience will be amply rewarded.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    What Lies Upstream
    What Lies Upstream is a quietly devastating documentary that’s all the more attention-grabbing for being such a scrupulously restrained and slickly polished piece of work.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Joe Leydon
    March of the Penguins
    Sometimes harrowing, sometimes hokey, sometimes heartwarming nature documentary.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    Two Family House
    For all the pic’s sentimentality, De Felitta refuses to back away from some unpleasantly realistic touches.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Joe Leydon
    High Fidelity
    Trenchantly witty and acutely insightful.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Leydon
    For Greater Glory
    Despite enough good intentions to pave a four-lane highway, the ardently sincere but dramatically unfocused For Greater Glory plays like a multipart miniseries that has been hacked down to feature length.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Joe Leydon
    The Highwaymen
    Commands attention less as historical counterpoint than as a sturdy showcase for the neatly balanced lead performances of Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Joe Leydon
    My Flesh and Blood
    One leaves My Flesh and Blood with admiration for the lenser's craftsmanship, and for her ability to remain an unobtrusive observer during moments of extreme emotional turmoil.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Joe Leydon
    Beware of Mr. Baker
    When a documentary begins with its subject using his crutch to deliver a vicious blow to the director's nose, it's reasonably safe to expect less-than-smooth sailing ahead.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Leydon
    Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
    Indie effort evidences more energy than wit, and spends too much time on set-up before a slam-bang pay-off.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    Number 37
    Far more substantial than a run-of-the-mill Hitchcock homage, Number 37 is richly satisfying on its own terms as a singularly crafty and strikingly well-crafted thriller that signals the arrival of a promising filmmaking talent.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    Born to Fly
    Born to Fly teasingly suggests that some displays of avant-garde virtuosity could be enjoyed equally by venturesome aesthetes, dance enthusiasts and devotees of World Wrestling Entertainment.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Joe Leydon
    The Phantom
    A fascinating and ultimately infuriating documentary.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Joe Leydon
    Hard Eight
    Four excellent lead performances, vividly evoked ambience and a masterfully sustained mood of quiet desperation mark Sydney as an impressive piece of work.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    Never Look Away
    Never Look Away gives us as complete a portrait as seems humanly possible, for which Lawless merits abundant credit.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story
    To paraphrase an admonition from a classic Rolling Stones album: This movie should be played real loud. And in venues where people can, if they choose, get up and dance.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Joe Leydon
    The Powerpuff Girls
    Small children who will accept it as rock-'em, sock-'em excitement with a touch of gender-specific empowerment, and hipper teens and grown-ups who can appreciate the whole thing as a semisatirical hoot.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Joe Leydon
    The Fearless Freaks
    Will please devotees without attracting many, if any, new converts.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Joe Leydon
    Kedi
    [A] splendidly graceful and quietly magical documentary.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Joe Leydon
    My Darling Vivian
    Deftly illustrating the testimonies with a treasure trove of material — photos, home movies, personal correspondence — provided by the daughters, the filmmakers have fashioned a narrative that begins as a sweet fairly-tale romance, then gradually turns sour.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Joe Leydon
    Silent Night
    Trouble is, apart from some modestly inventive carnage and an undeniably humorous hambone turn by Malcolm McDowell, there's really nothing here to make genre fans dash through the snow (or maneuver through traffic) to megaplexes before the low-budget, high-concept Canadian production's Dec. 4 homevid release.
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