Katie Rife

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IGN, IndieWire, Polygon, RogerEbert.com, The A.V. Club, TheWrap
For 544 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 35% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Katie Rife's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Little Women
Lowest review score: 0 The Haunting of Sharon Tate
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 362 out of 544
  2. Mixed: 160 out of 544
  3. Negative: 22 out of 544
544 movie reviews
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    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Katie Rife
    The Craft: Legacy
    Writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones places less emphasis on the culture surrounding witchcraft—there’s no occult store to shoplift from in this film, for example—and more on the girls’ innate supernatural powers, manifested mostly as sparkly wisps of CGI and stunt people in harnesses being jerked across the frame. This is of a piece with more contemporary teen-witch entertainment like the rebooted Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, as well as the film’s message about finding and harnessing one’s own innate magic.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Katie Rife
    Synchronic
    Synchronic does allow its symbolism to grow relatively organically, but in terms of character arc and parting message, this film is far more conventional than those that have come before. And a little something is lost in these broader strokes, particularly because they seem to have been self-imposed.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 58 Katie Rife
    Honest Thief
    Not exactly a thinking man’s action movie, and not a gleefully dopey thrill ride either, Honest Thief is as grudging as its main character when it comes to doling out thrills.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Katie Rife
    Books of Blood
    Beyond fleeting moments of graphic violence and nudity, the knife’s edge here is actually quite dull.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Katie Rife
    The Glorias
    The result is a choppy mix of timelines, color schemes, and differing levels of realism that’s too unfocused to really inspire.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    12 Hour Shift
    The material is edgy and at times outrageously gory and chaotic, but Bettis gives Mandy an exhausted, fed-up quality that keeps the movie on track, even (or maybe especially) when she’s pissed off about having to do everything herself.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Katie Rife
    Ava
    Ava is a napping-on-the-couch movie through and through, with recognizable names and a sexy premise but no distinct personality.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    Kajillionaire
    The chemistry between Rodriguez and Wood is undeniable, and Rodriguez’s more naturalistic performance balances out her costar’s affected shuffling and deep, gravely monotone. Wood’s performance is sensitive, but it’s also silly at times.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    Shadow in the Cloud
    Pure popcorn entertainment, superimposing the dynamic synths and narrative efficiency of a John Carpenter movie onto the burnished metal and green fatigues of a World War II adventure.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Katie Rife
    Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds
    This film is charming and educational enough, but it’s not especially profound; it flirts with big ideas about the origins of life and the twin cycles of creation and destruction but doesn’t really let them sink in.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    I Care a Lot
    The film is arguably too long, with a mushy middle section that slows the momentum of its savage first third. But Pike’s performance remains sharp as her character’s blonde bob throughout, and the pleasures of watching her and Dinklage face off are significant.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    Concrete Cowboy
    It’s a little corny at times, but it looks good and has heart—and, let’s be honest, Black cowboys are pretty damn cool.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Shiva Baby
    The style of humor in Shiva Baby can best be described as “sex-positive cringe,” in which the secondhand embarrassment comes less from the sexual situations themselves than our heroine’s collision with polite, conservative society.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    One Night in Miami
    As one might expect from a movie based on a play and directed by a famous actor, dialogue and performances are the driving force.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Katie Rife
    Ammonite
    Ammonite is too pallid to really get your blood flowing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Feels Good Man
    Pretty darn entertaining.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Katie Rife
    Bill & Ted Face the Music
    The Bill & Ted movies derive much of their humor from the blending of extremely low and extremely high stakes. Face The Music kind of blows it on the former: For all the preaching about the importance of togetherness and unity, the film mostly keeps its fiftysomething stars and their kids apart. Which is a shame.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Katie Rife
    Project Power
    You might as well spend a couple hours with this film on in the background, but don’t expect much about it to stick with you—except for the jaw-dropping Henrietta Lacks monologue. You may need to pop a pill to forget that.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    I Used to Go Here
    I Used To Go Here would rather be painfully relatable than cutting.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Katie Rife
    La Llorona
    What stands out about the film is the pain that lies underneath Bustamante’s placid compositions—an anguished desire for justice that, like the Weeping Woman herself, still cries out to be heard.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    She Dies Tomorrow
    It is an emotionally vulnerable piece of work, touching on everything from the pain of experiencing a mental illness that no one around you understands to what it means to waste your life.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Relic
    Combined with realistically messy family dynamics and expert turns from the ensemble cast — particularly Nevin, whose performance forges boldly into challenging territory — the result is powerful, if a style of horror audiences have grown used to in a post-A24 world.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 42 Katie Rife
    Desperados
    The cast as a whole persists mightily throughout this shambling, frustrating, overplotted film.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    Babyteeth
    As that ending approaches, the tone shifts from dark comedy to sentimental drama, adding a maudlin aftertaste to an otherwise appealingly bitter brew.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    Miss Juneteenth
    At its heart, Miss Juneteenth is about the relationship between a mother and her daughter, which Peoples brings to the screen with a subtlety that’s very true to life.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Shirley
    Mocked by her peers, mistreated by her husband, and burdened by mental illness, Jackson lived with the psychic evils that lurk in her writing. But for Decker, what’s important about Shirley’s misery is how she used it to fuel her work.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    The Lovebirds
    The dynamic between this screwball couple is half affectionate and half exasperated, and there are enough funny lines sprinkled throughout—a personal favorite: “documentaries are just reality shows no one watches”—to keep the laughs coming. But while The Lovebirds are sparkling conversationalists, as the plot gets more convoluted, the champagne starts to go flat
    • 43 Metascore
    • 25 Katie Rife
    Scoob!
    You can’t even get mad at the script for its half-hearted gestures towards self-aware commentary; writers must keep themselves entertained, after all, when churning out one of the many drafts a film like Scoob! goes through before production begins.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Katie Rife
    How to Build a Girl
    Feldstein is as contagiously ebullient as always in the role, and her English accent is mostly passable, although it breaks down at times during the voiceovers that bookend the film. But her character’s actions keep chipping away at the actor’s natural charisma.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Katie Rife
    Z
    Z’s greatest virtue is in the delivery of its frights, which hit like a slap in the face despite falling into the general category of “jump scares.”
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