Justin Lowe

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The Hollywood Reporter
For 271 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Justin Lowe's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World
Lowest review score: 0 The Impaler
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 117 out of 271
  2. Mixed: 120 out of 271
  3. Negative: 34 out of 271
271 movie reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Justin Lowe
    The Bad Kids
    Directors Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe dive right into the school’s maelstrom of tragedy, dysfunction and boundless optimism, delivering an insightful, affecting film that casts sympathetic light on a neglected educational sector in a manner that acknowledges the dedication of countless career educators and may even help inspire a new generation of teachers and social workers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    The Retrieval
    Leveraging limited resources to impressive effect, writer-director Chris Eska’s empathetic scripting and well-tuned casting reliably guide The Retrieval’s memorable trajectory.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    John Wick: Chapter 2
    Once again, Reeves does not disappoint, fully inhabiting Wick by channeling his rage over life’s injustices into an intensely focused performance.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Justin Lowe
    Nina Forever
    Although it’s an inspired gamble to introduce familiar genre elements into what’s essentially a high-strung relationship drama, Nina Forever’s repeatedly shifting tone ultimately proves more of a drawback than an asset.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    Mary and The Witch's Flower
    Director Yonebayashi Hiromasa (When Marnie Was There) returns with a more lighthearted anime feature in Mary and the Witch’s Flower, a stirring adventure most suitable for tweens and teens.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Justin Lowe
    Caucus
    As a document of the American political process, Caucus offers an intriguing if limited snapshot of a specific campaign season, but lacks either breadth or depth.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    Assassins
    Ryan White crafts a piercingly observant investigative documentary that methodically pieces together a complex collage of incriminating evidence outlining a carefully orchestrated attempt to conceal the sinister implications behind Kim’s assassination.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Justin Lowe
    Running Wild: The Life of Dayton O. Hyde
    An appealing documentary about one of the American West’s unique cowboy conservationists.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Justin Lowe
    Narco Cultura
    Passably absorbing to start, Shaul Schwarz’s examination of the issues surrounding Mexican and immigrant musicians who glorify drug lords and their exploits gradually bogs down in repetition and narrative inertia.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Justin Lowe
    Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World
    As Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana’s astoundingly rich and resonant music documentary makes abundantly clear, American popular music – and the history of rock and roll itself – wouldn’t be the same without the contributions of Native American performers.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    Olympic Pride, American Prejudice
    Draper constructs a concisely assembled editorial package that covers the essential historical backstory of the 1936 Games while building drama during the competition and establishing a consistently affecting emotional arc throughout.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    On the President's Orders
    There’s barely any let-up in tension throughout the film, even during interviews with subjects who could either be concealing murderous personal histories or potential victims risking their lives to disclose the excesses of law enforcement.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Justin Lowe
    Sierra Burgess Is a Loser
    While its indispensable girl-power self-affirmational instincts are sound and a committed cast assiduously focuses on delivering an uplifting message, this is regrettably uninvolving material.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    Dead Pigs
    Yan’s film mines several prominent social issues to contextualize the improbable plot, including socioeconomic mobility, environmental degradation and market speculation. Rather than just documenting their prevalence, she demonstrates how they coalesce to create a conflicting array of impacts for her characters.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    A Picture of You
    Chan varies the film’s stylistic veneer of naturalism with occasional, lyrical scenes of the lush woodsy environs surrounding the family home and flashbacks to the kids’ childhoods, as well as moments of low-key visual humor, as the pair stumble about searching for clues to their mother’s secret life.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Justin Lowe
    Restoring Tomorrow
    Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s hard-won renaissance, as chronicled in Aaron Wolf’s fondly crafted documentary, proves to be a vigorous affirmation of the vitality of Jewish tradition in Los Angeles that will fascinate the faithful and enlighten the curious.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Justin Lowe
    Breaking a Monster
    Meyer...and his easy rapport with the kids and Sacks helps coax sometimes surprisingly candid comments from his subjects. What’s missing however is adequate background on how the boys became such impressive young musicians and why they gravitated toward heavy metal rather than pop or rap.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Justin Lowe
    Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
    Despite some shortcomings, Pussy Riot remains a significant contribution to the ongoing dialogue assessing the current state of Russian society and culture, as well as the sometimes tenuous status of free speech in the free world.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Justin Lowe
    Author: The JT LeRoy Story
    Although it’s clear that her dauntingly complex personality contributes to her abilities as a superior storyteller, Feuerzeig and Albert now ask us to believe a proven unreliable narrator’s account of her own life, which largely lacks corroboration.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Justin Lowe
    Noble
    With a style characterized by strong visual storytelling and a seamless rapport with actors both young and old, Bradley guides the cast with a gentle hand and a well-defined vision.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Justin Lowe
    Insidious: Chapter 2
    Setting aside the movie’s tediously lame dialogue, self-conscious performances and frequently predicable scares, the narrative’s compulsively shifting chronology intermittently manages to engage, although it does little to obscure the distracting shortcomings of both plot and character development.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    When Two Worlds Collide
    Earnest, direct and sometimes surprisingly dramatic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    Blood Brother
    Addressing the heartrending issue of children living with HIV and AIDS is enormously complex, but Blood Brother accomplishes the challenge with sufficient grace and empathy to give hope to anyone concerned with this global affliction.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Justin Lowe
    Blood Stripe
    Nowlin’s performance...is a marvel of inner turmoil and physical exertion.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    The Nile Hilton Incident
    The Nile Hilton Incident represents the type of penetrating filmmaking that only a writer-director intimately familiar with Egyptian culture but possessing an outsider’s perspective could convincingly accomplish.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Justin Lowe
    East Side Sushi
    Endearing performances, accomplished low-budget filmmaking and a distinctive urban setting all add up to an appetizing offering.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Justin Lowe
    Happy Christmas
    Swanberg's modest script lays out some fairly mundane domestic situations, which the actors elevate with a collaborative style characterized by gentle humor and authentic, frequently overlapping dialogue.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Justin Lowe
    Haunt
    A lethal little ensemble feature that packs quite a few thrills into a compact format.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Justin Lowe
    T-Rex
    Inspiring as her journey may be, however, the film tracks an overly familiar arc, dwelling on Shields' disadvantaged background, teenage romance with another young boxer and family turmoil but providing limited focus on the sport of women's boxing or the complexities of obtaining training sponsorship or lucrative endorsements.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Justin Lowe
    Echo In the Canyon
    Rich with revealing observations and engaging anecdotes, Slater’s documentary skirts the nostalgia trap by entertainingly connecting with an impressive lineup of contemporary singer-songwriters referencing the influential '60s pop style with their own releases.
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