Kenneth Turan

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Los Angeles Times
For 2,642 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 66% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 32% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 6.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Kenneth Turan's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 72
Highest review score: 100 Vertigo
Lowest review score: 0 Stolen Summer
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,845 out of 2642
  2. Mixed: 659 out of 2642
  3. Negative: 138 out of 2642
2642 movie reviews
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    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Kenneth Turan
    The Good Dinosaur
    The Good Dinosaur is antic and unexpected as well as homiletic, rife with subversive elements, wacky critters and some of the most beautiful landscapes ever seen in a computer animated film.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Kenneth Turan
    Creed
    Coogler and company do fine work convincing us against our better judgment that nothing we see is preordained, that anything can happen within the four corners of the ring. You can't ask a "Rocky" film to do more than that.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Kenneth Turan
    Carol
    Haynes understands that swooningly beautiful traditional technique bolstered by thrilling performances creates the greatest impact. He has made a serious melodrama about the geometry of desire, a dreamy example of heightened reality that fully engages emotions despite the exact calculations with which it's been made.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Kenneth Turan
    The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
    The aesthetically misguided idea of breaking the final book into two films, commercially remunerative though it might have been, has ended up making the dragged-out proceedings feel anti-climactic and emotionally static.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Kenneth Turan
    Spotlight
    Spotlight doesn't call attention to itself. Its screenplay is self-effacing, its accomplished direction is intentionally low key, and it encourages its fistful of top actors to blend into an eloquent ensemble.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Kenneth Turan
    SPECTRE
    Yes, some of the individual stunts and action set pieces temporarily hold our interest...but the story itself is not convincing on its own terms, playing like a series of boxes (Bond asking for a martini shaken not stirred) that need to be checked off and forgotten.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Kenneth Turan
    Brooklyn
    A godsend for audiences who hunger for rich emotion presented with wit, grace and not a trace of sentimentality, Brooklyn illustrates the power of restraint in dealing with poignant, impassioned material.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Kenneth Turan
    Burnt
    Burnt is mildly diverting.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Kenneth Turan
    India's Daughter
    Don't mistake the brief running time of India's Daughter for a lack of importance or ability to involve. Though it lasts only 63 minutes, this documentary's impact is devastating.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Kenneth Turan
    Our Brand Is Crisis
    Nominally a satiric comedy, the film is only sporadically effective, running out of energy before it reaches the end.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Kenneth Turan
    Suffragette
    Though ably acted and indisputably on the side of the angels, Suffragette as directed by Sarah Gavron is more dead-on earnest and schematic than it needs to be.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Kenneth Turan
    Crimson Peak
    Crimson Peak's astonishing visuals don't enhance its story (co-written by the director and Matthew Robbins); they overwhelm it, encouraging us to stand back and admire the look when we should be involved in the emotional mechanics of this lurid tale.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Kenneth Turan
    Room
    Larson has done exceptional work before... but the way she has taken the deepest of dives into this complex, difficult material is little short of astonishing. The reality and preternatural commitment she brings to Ma is piercingly honest from start to finish, as scaldingly emotional a performance as anyone could wish for.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Kenneth Turan
    Bridge of Spies
    Bridge of Spies is a consummate professional's tribute to a gifted amateur, a smooth entertainment with a strong but subtle political subtext that's both potent and unexpected.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Kenneth Turan
    Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom
    Winter on Fire never takes its eye off the story's underlying and very dramatic theme, and that would be nothing less than revolution.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Kenneth Turan
    Victoria
    It's a film of exceptional technical virtuosity that could have used some help in the dramatic department.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Kenneth Turan
    Steve Jobs
    Steve Jobs is a smart, hugely entertaining film that all but bristles with crackling creative energy. What it is not is a standard biopic.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Kenneth Turan
    99 Homes
    Because of its strong dialogue and convincing acting, 99 Homes stays on point for quite some time, artfully disguising the film's increasing reliance on plot devices.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Kenneth Turan
    Freeheld
    Having its heart and mind in the right place is not enough to make this a better movie than it is.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Kenneth Turan
    The Martian
    The Martian is a film that respects the geekiest among us, and that pays off all around.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Kenneth Turan
    The Walk
    It would be swell if all of The Walk came together as beautifully as the computer effects do, but it would also be churlish not to appreciate what we do have. This film may not talk the talk, but it definitely walks the walk, and for that we are grateful.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Kenneth Turan
    The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
    An organization that stubbornly resists being pigeonholed, the Black Panther Party emerges from this documentary with its significance enhanced but some of its tactics questioned.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Kenneth Turan
    Finders Keepers
    Directors Bryan Carberry and Clay Tweel stick with this story long enough to emotionally deepen the proceedings and show us how the struggle changes lives in profound ways no one could have anticipated.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Kenneth Turan
    Everest
    Though there is heroism as well as love here, because it involves the deaths of people we have come to care about, Everest is finally a sad story, though not always a dramatically involving one.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Kenneth Turan
    Black Mass
    If the final result doesn't transcend emotionally in the manner of the gold standard of Boston noir, Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River," the fault is not in the execution but the unyieldingly oppressive nature of the underlying material.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Kenneth Turan
    Pawn Sacrifice
    The film's straight-ahead approach matters less than the complete and utter strangeness of the true story it convincingly tells.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Kenneth Turan
    A Brilliant Young Mind
    A Brilliant Young Mind doesn't fit into any familiar inspirational box. Many of its characters are complex, contrary individuals who are not even close to being comfortable in their own skins, and this film refuses to shortchange how frustratingly edgy and difficult they are to interact with.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Kenneth Turan
    Time Out of Mind
    Given what it attempts, Time Out of Mind should be considered a success. An attempt to use a movie star to shine a dramatic light on the intractable problem of urban homelessness, the film's tone of austerity helps it to avoid sentimentality and simplistic answers.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Kenneth Turan
    Meet the Patels
    Meet The Patels is more than just a hoot. Its candor and empathy allow it to make keen points about love, marriage, family and the unexpected complications that American freedoms can bring to immigrant lives.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Kenneth Turan
    Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine
    While the filmmaker's trademark mixture of talking heads, archival footage and investigative ethos is familiar, Gibney is certainly good at what he does, and "Steve Jobs" is at its best in providing a brisk summation of the man's life. Or, more accurately, lives, for Jobs seemed to have been more people than one would have thought possible.
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