Joe Williams

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch
For 820 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 60% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Joe Williams' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Samsara
Lowest review score: 0 The Divergent Series: Insurgent
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 597 out of 820
  2. Mixed: 156 out of 820
  3. Negative: 67 out of 820
820 movie reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    13 Assassins
    If what you seek from a samurai film is the friction between communal duty and personal honor, join the orderly queue to see 13 Assassins. But if what you seek is action, spend the talky first hour at a sushi bar before barging into the theater for the bloody good finale.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Southpaw
    Fuqua is a proficient action director, and the boxing scenes deliver plenty of whomp. But the music-saturated scenes involving the media, the law and a turncoat friend played by Curtis (“50 Cent”) Jackson are trying to appeal to fans of “Empire,” not “Raging Bull.”
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Ant-Man
    This debut film is fun, and everyone involved can proudly declare, “Honey, I shrunk the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Trainwreck
    Amy Schumer is so scary-good in Trainwreck that it almost seems risky to speak her name.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Gemma Bovery
    This meta movie even has fun with faulty translations between French and English. To paraphrase Gemma as she conjugates verbs on the treadmill, “J’ai adorée.”
    • 47 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Max
    When the movie morphs from a story of mutual healing into a crime-fighting caper, it goes off track.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Ted 2
    One man’s mirth is another man’s poison, this critic can only consult his belly as the barometer. On a gut level, Ted 2 is a funny film.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Jurassic World
    But even without world-class smarts or amusing mutations, the next generation of “Jurassic” is an enjoyable ride.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Love & Mercy
    Love & Mercy is artfully but unobtrusively directed by Bill Pohlad.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Entourage
    On that vicarious-pleasure level, the movie version delivers. Yet for anyone with a sense of irony or social justice, it’s also frustratingly soft around the edges, with no real sense of the drugs-and-violence underside of show business or the spiritual cost of failure.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
    Be forewarned: The 100-Year-Old Man is edgier than its title would lead you to believe. Bad guys are bludgeoned, blown up and even crushed by an elephant, and the two duffers take a lassez-faire attitude toward disposing of them.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Félix And Meira
    In the context of confounded expectations, director Maxime Giroux may have intended the what’s-next ending to be ironic.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Mad Max: Fury Road
    This is analog filmmaking at its most daring.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    It’s Belgian actor Schoenaerts who will leave the target audience atwitter. Seemingly incapable of cracking a smile, he fits securely in the stoic-farmer tradition that stretches from John Wayne in “The Quiet Man” to Russell Crowe in “The Water Diviner.”
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    The D Train
    While Black is painfully effective as the dork who drops slangy kudos on his new BFF, Marsden is a revelation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Welcome to Me
    This showcase for Wiig is sufficiently absurd to make real-world parallels laughable.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Avengers: Age of Ultron
    Age of Ultron has self-aware laughs, grandiose themes and the best effects that money can buy. But at this point, it will take true vision to plot the umpteen sequels without getting trapped in a time loop.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Ex Machina
    With a stellar cast and seductive look, Ex Machina is a sleek contraption for capturing our imagination.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Water Diviner
    Crowe is effectively restrained in his acting, but in his debut as a director, he overdoes the manipulative music and the pretty images from cinematographer Andrew Lesnie.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Monkey Kingdom
    Monkey Kingdom tugs our heartstrings to the top of the trees. With a lot of patience, and perhaps a little trickery, directors Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill have produced a simian “Cinderella.”
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    True Story
    While the movie sometimes seems like faux Fincher, the symbiotic acting, artful imagery and punchline ending turn True Story into credible entertainment.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Merchants of Doubt
    Finally the film tips its hand and becomes a bet-the-house warning about climate change.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Seymour: An Introduction
    The movie is more of a character study than a biography, as Bernstein dispenses his gentle wit and wisdom for the camera and for an elite class of student.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Woman in Gold
    The Woman in Gold works, largely because of the odd-couple chemistry between Mirren and Reynolds. It just goes to show that broad strokes are appealing when they’re in the right frame.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    While We're Young
    Only an artist at the midpoint between the maypole and maturity could concoct a comedy as potent as While We’re Young.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Danny Collins
    The lesson of this likable little movie is that it’s never too late to reclaim your integrity.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Joe Williams
    Deli Man
    The documentary offers undercooked subplots about Gruber’s mostly Hispanic staff and his romance with a health-conscious Catholic acupuncturist, but Deli Man is best when it sticks to the menu.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Home
    Home delivers like a mailman on Valentine’s Day. But when we scratch beneath the sugary surface, there’s something tart inside that’s difficult to digest.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
    One of the best films of the year, Gett: the Trial of Viviane Amsalem is bound to be compared to the Oscar-winning Iranian drama “A Separation”; but if anything, Gett is an even more artful evocation of a bureaucratic nightmare.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Joe Williams
    Timbuktu
    The movie Timbuktu is as fresh as today’s headlines, but it’s paced and photographed like a timeless slice of life. It’s an exquisite, wise and even funny film, easily the best of the year.
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