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 point 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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    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Crazy, Stupid, Love
    Directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra were weaned on earthy comedies like "Bad Santa," and every moment of mature insight in Crazy, Stupid, Love is answered by a scene of formulaic farce.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Take Me Home Tonight
    Hits most of the markers of a flashback film but not enough of the beats.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Don Jon
    Gordon-Levitt is a victim of his own success here. He plays such a convincing cad that we don’t believe or invest in his redemption.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Extract
    Extract has some flavor, but the comedic kick is diluted by flat characters and a thin story.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Sarah's Key
    Although this sober film spares us some of the grim, survivalist details, the harrowing adventure from a girl's perspective is so compelling that Julia's simultaneous sleuthing seems like an unnecessary distraction.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Future
    July is a provocative and honorably independent filmmaker, but given the meager rewards of investing our time, The Future wasn't worth the wait.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Robot and Frank
    Ultimately a movie that could have been a little jewel is unpolished.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Robin Hood
    A lot of care went into crafting the handsome production but not enough into making the handsome hero come alive.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    What's Your Number?
    It does induce a few giggles like cheap champagne.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Stoning of Soraya M.
    This broadside against sharia law lacks the finesse of an import, but it's effectively melodramatic.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    A Knight's Tale
    A Knight's Tale succeeds as light entertainment if not as historical record. [11 May 2001, p.F1]
    • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    I Am Love
    I Am Love is easy to savor but tough to swallow.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Girl on the Train
    Although this stylish and ominously paced vehicle starts with a full itinerary, it never makes a vital connection.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Avengers
    The fiery finale is good enough to leave the legions smiling. But when a movie is expected to lift an entire industry, "good enough" shouldn't be good enough.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Tiny Furniture
    In skewering the neuroses of New York bohemians, Durham has left us too little to care about.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Albert Nobbs
    The double deception of suppressed personality and repressed sexuality could have been the basis for a rewarding character study, but after Albert meets a kindred spirit and dares to dream of a happy ending, her denial and naivete become too much to swallow.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Sapphires
    Draining most of the blood, sweat and tears from a true story, this music-minded movie capably covers a song we’ve heard a hundred times before.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Where the Wild Things Are
    To their credit, the creative team has retained the handmade look and unruly spirit of Maurice Sendak's bedtime fable; to their discredit, they haven't added enough narrative or emotional dimension to make it an effective movie.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Friends with Benefits
    A bait-and-switch comedy. It poses as a naughty "no-mance" about friends who use each other for casual sex, but at the moment of truth it goes limp.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Heartbreaker
    The premise is pure formula.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Daddy Longlegs
    Like other so-called "mumblecore" movies, including Bronstein's own "Frownland," this is an unnervingly intimate glimpse of dysfunction, with a shaky-cam aesthetic and seemingly improvised dialogue.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Serious Moonlight
    It's a pleasure to watch Ryan resurrect her trademark persona, a mix of perkiness and pique, as she flounces around the room. But it's shaded with a middle-age desperation that's half real and half chick-flick shtick.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Flame and Citron
    While it may not be a smorgasbord of red herrings and red meat, Flame and Citron is often chilling.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Shutter Island
    This quasi-horror film has the great director's usual craftsmanship and a stellar cast, but ultimately it's an infuriating trick that makes its most provocative ideas disappear.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Monuments Men
    It’s admirable, but Monuments Men just poses on a porous foundation like a statue.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Words and Pictures
    The movie looks like it was made for broadcast television, the place where words and pictures go to die.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Amelia
    The actress and the aviatrix are a match made in heaven, but surrounding the soaring performance is a movie that's mostly earthbound.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    It's Complicated
    It's funny but (sorry, ladies) unrealistic that Jake continuously sneaks away from his young wife to canoodle with Jane. Baldwin is a blast, but the role requires him to indulge in indignities such as a naked webcam conversation.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Stoker
    Like a taxidermied owl, Stoker is lovely to look at, but in the end it’s hard to give a hoot.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    American Reunion
    There's some laughing gas left in the cupboard, but this series may require an infusion of new blood to last until "American Funeral."
    • 54 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Paper Heart
    This movie may be sickly sweet, but it's harmless; and as a handcrafted antidote to a toxic toy story like "G.I.Joe," Paper Heart has healing properties.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Hundred-Foot Journey
    Although the outcome is as predetermined as a prix-fixe menu, the storytelling is as smooth as goose-liver pate through a pastry nozzle.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
    The CGI effects are a familiar sort and so is the heroic-quest motif. The principal virtue in this modest entertainment is that the young characters act like real teenagers.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Help
    It's a credit to the cast and to the worthiness of the idea that this overlong movie works at all. But those of us who already know that racism is bad could use a little more challenge and a little less help.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Walking with Dinosaurs
    Strange hybrid of science lesson and Saturday-morning cartoon.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Joe
    While Green is force-feeding us this hard-boiled hokum, he doesn’t distract us with many memorable images, as he did in his earliest films.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Gunman
    The best excuse for watching The Gunman is Penn. His first mainstream leading role in a decade is worthy of comparisons to Matt Damon in the “Bourne” movies; yet it’s also disappointingly shorn of the humor and humanity of which this great actor is capable.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Hit and Run
    Hit and Run isn't a catastrophe, but it leaves loose ends and a more adventurous map by the side of the winding road.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Me and Orson Welles
    The difference between McKay and Efron is like the difference between a Broadway spectacular and a high school musical.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Invention of Lying
    This topsy-turvy flick is fitfully funny, but more often it's just odd, like the first draft of a "Twilight Zone" episode that's missing its moral.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Raid 2
    The plot is murky, the acting is melodramatic and the movie is way too long, but the target audience will salivate over the inventively choreographed set-pieces.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Pink Ribbons, Inc.
    A colorful indictment of corporate infestation, but it's missing a prescription.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Machine Gun Preacher
    If you'd pay to see a film called "Hotel Rwanda: Maniac Manager," you might be receptive to this mixed-message movie, but skeptics should keep one eye on the exit.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The City of Your Final Destination
    With its seductive images and smart dialogue, The City of Your Final Destination has the setting and circumstances for a ripe family drama or a literary love story, yet it never awakens from its siesta.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Friends with Kids
    Like an acquaintance couple's baby pictures, Friends With Kids induces coos but isn't as cute as they think.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Mighty Macs
    This true story fills a needed niche, spotlighting women's basketball in the era before Title IX promoted equal treatment.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    This Must Be the Place
    Penn has created a colorful tour guide, but in This Must Be the Place, there's no there there.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Happy, Happy
    Happy, Happy has the makings of a Norwegian "Ice Storm," but it goes out with a whimper.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Woman in Black
    There's little that's new, revealing or stylish about this basic-black horror story, but if you've got a Goth sensibility, it might suit you.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Restless
    If you haven't seen a wasting disease in real life, you might think Restless is romantic. If you have, you might diagnose it as terminally cute.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Toast
    Toast is lovely to look at, evoking both the gray-green milieu of Midlands life and the sensuality of good food, but it's like a whipped topping with no base.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Incendies
    Canadian director Denis Villaneuve knows how to stoke a hot debate about the legacy of violence. But in this case, where there's smoke, there's not enough air.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Thor: The Dark World
    Compared to other Marvel characters, Thor is a difficult sell.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Soul Surfer
    It's a compelling tale of surf and survival.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Amazing Spider-Man 2
    Easy to watch but hard to pin down, like a creature with eight legs going in different directions.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    About Time
    There’s a lot of comic and fantasy potential here, but much of it gets squandered.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    The Bay
    The Bay is better than a shallow exercise, but crabby horror fans may have preferred that Levinson took a real plunge.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Emperor
    This true-ish story adds a romantic subplot to the prosecution of Japanese war criminals by American general Douglas MacArthur, but neither the love nor the war are completely baked.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Inception
    Christopher Nolan's "Memento" was a movie-lover's dream come true, a puzzle that was engaging both intellectually and emotionally. But his Inception is a wake-up call, a blaring reminder that cheap tricks can't compensate for personal investment.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Melancholia
    Like a newborn planet, Melancholia is magnetically beautiful, but it's also an unformed mass of hot air.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Mr. Popper's Penguins
    The moral lesson that this movie feeds us smells fishy - because it's not in the book. But the backbone story about a guy who inherits some penguins is enough to tickle the kids.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 63 Joe Williams
    Non-Stop
    Non-Stop: It is what it is.
    • 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.
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