John Hartl

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Film.com, The Seattle Times
For 544 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

John Hartl's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 64
Highest review score: 100 The Innocents
Lowest review score: 10 Drop Dead Gorgeous
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 340 out of 544
  2. Mixed: 113 out of 544
  3. Negative: 91 out of 544
544 movie reviews
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    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    The Hollars
    Crowded, cornball and too busy for its short running time, The Hollars nevertheless generates a few moments of grace and reflection.
    • 23 Metascore
    • 38 John Hartl
    The Sea of Trees
    The sparring couple at its center are played by Naomi Watts, a fearless actress who seems game for anything, and Matthew McConaughey, who just seems off his game here.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    Morris from America
    It’s disarmingly spirited, especially when its teen star, Markees Christmas, is sharing the screen with Craig Robinson.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
    The full title, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, is pure, over-the-top Herzog: simultaneously an embrace of fresh internet technology and an attempt to suggest a mythical dimension.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    War Dogs
    The whole may be less than its parts, but the parts are pretty impressive.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    Under the Sun
    In the end, it’s all about that little girl and how she responds to the lavish song-and-dance epic designed to praise Korea’s leader, the late Kim Jong-II. Under the Sun may seem slow and hollow at times, but her emotions appear to be quite spontaneous.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Microbe and Gasoline
    The laughs are sometimes bigger than expected, and so are the emotions stirred by the bittersweet finale.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Eva Hesse
    A unique and satisfying new documentary.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Land and Shade
    The first-time director, Cesar Augusto Acevida, composes his frames carefully, using closing doorways to suggest alienation, as John Ford did in “The Searchers.” The harvesting and crop fire scenes recall Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven.”
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Tickled
    Engaging and constantly surprising.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 John Hartl
    Wiener-Dog
    The casting was spot-on in “Dollhouse”; here it seems haphazard.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    Free State of Jones
    Unfortunately, it’s so ambitious that it’s constantly straining to find a focus.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    The Last King
    Gaup deftly keeps track of the major betrayals without making them seem too obvious.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Viva
    Slick and raunchy when it might have been grindingly realistic, Viva is finally all heart.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 John Hartl
    The Family Fang
    With its opening line, “Imagine you’re dead,” The Family Fang instantly invites its soon-to-be-captive audience on an absorbing, provocative, slightly fantastic path that’s like few others.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 38 John Hartl
    Rio, I Love You
    Stuffed with touristy images but not enough dramatic substance to make any of them count.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Sold
    Achingly sad and dismayingly familiar.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    Too Late
    The results are uneven. Almost any scene with Hawkes is alive and satisfyingly showy. You feel his absence when he isn’t there, though Joanna Cassidy, Crystal Reed and Robert Forster all have their moments.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    The Preppie Connection
    The script’s first half is vigorous enough.... But the movie needs the audacity of a “Trainspotting” to lift it above the norm.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    Louder Than Bombs
    It has its value as a vigorous variation on a theme.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 John Hartl
    Fireworks Wednesday (2006)
    Much of this is funny, some of it is scary and a lot of it is as twisty as a mystery thriller. Very little of it, thanks to a superb cast, is predictable.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 John Hartl
    Take Me to the River
    Wonderfully confident and strange, Take Me to the River marks an auspicious directing debut for Matt Sobel. There’s not a stale moment in it.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 50 John Hartl
    Cemetery of Splendor
    What the film does have going for it is a ghostly atmosphere that leads to a few surprising developments, including some color effects and a charmingly off-the-wall musical number.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    The Wave
    Swedish director Roar Uthaug (“Cold Prey“) depends on well-crafted suspense, spot-on casting and ingenious special effects to tell the story of a dedicated geologist (Kristoffer Joner) who prophesies watery disaster in touristy Norway.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Eisenstein in Guanajuato
    Eisenstein in Guanajuato is an outrageous comic-erotic extravaganza that has more of a narrative arc than most Greenaway movies.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 John Hartl
    Johnny Mnemonic
    The movie is a series of ostentatious effects, without much sense of narrative momentum or rhythmic pacing, and it leaves you feeling like you've landed on a treadmill. [26 May 1995, p.E3]
    • The Seattle Times
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 John Hartl
    Year of the Horse
    There's too much feedback and some of the numbers are allowed to go on, Grateful Dead style, but the movie means to invoke a trance, and often it succeeds. [29 Oct 1997, p.C1]
    • The Seattle Times
    • 28 Metascore
    • 25 John Hartl
    Return to the Blue Lagoon
    The travelogue-style photography is soothing, the bodies are pretty and the music isn't offensive, but feature-length movies can't survive on the ingredients for a standard airline commercial.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 John Hartl
    Misery
    Reiner's direction and William Goldman's script succeed on their own cartoonish level, and Kathy Bates, who plays the fan as if she were a close relative of Norman Bates, rips into the role with undisguised relish. [30 Nov 1990, p.24]
    • The Seattle Times
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 John Hartl
    Judgment Night
    Judgment Night is almost completely lacking in conviction and originality. But Leary does a fair Dennis Hopper imitation, Gooding does his best with an insulting role, and the ending is witty enough not to give us the undying villain it leads us to expect. [15 Oct 1993, p.D27]
    • The Seattle Times
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