Kerry Lengel

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Arizona Republic
For 176 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Kerry Lengel's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Too Late to Die Young
Lowest review score: 20 Peterloo
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 86 out of 176
  2. Mixed: 86 out of 176
  3. Negative: 4 out of 176
176 movie reviews
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    • 32 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Cats
    I guess I was charmed in spite of myself. I’m reminded of a quote from Alexander Pope I had to memorize as a kid, which gave me fair warning about the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber and “Cats”: “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien / as to be hated needs but to be seen; / Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, / We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” Did I tear up a little? Maybe. Do I ever need to see “Cats” again? Nah, I’m good.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Kerry Lengel
    Cyrano, My Love
    While the actors certainly have charm, the farcical plot is so formulaic that the comic fizz often feels forced.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Jumanji: The Next Level
    Outdoing all of the headliners, at least when it comes to capturing voices and body language, is a new character inside the game played by Awkwafina of “Crazy Rich Asians.” It’s subtle, but there’s something more authentic about her version of the shtick. She’s just more in the moment — or maybe less desperate for a laugh.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
    With “Maleficent’s” feminist message suffering a relapse, the sequel looks more like generic film fantasy than a fresh take on an old story. The cuddly creatures and razzle-dazzle action are enough to make two hours disappear, but it’s only Jolie’s bat-winged charisma that will rattle on in your memory.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Don't Let Go
    The plot is ingeniously engineered, but the narrative is like a low-res image. It gets the idea across, but without the kind of details that make it memorable.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    After the Wedding
    There’s a lot to be admired here, and After the Wedding certainly gives you a lot to think about. It just doesn’t quite make you feel all the feels.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Kerry Lengel
    Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
    There’s a fine line between homage and rip-off, between a clever mashup and a messy pileup of tired tropes. But, much like a rainbow, where that line appears is in the eye of the beholder.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Annabelle Comes Home
    An ever-changing obstacle course does sustain its own kind of tension, but it’s not like there’s a real puzzle to solve, nor any arc to the plot. The movie is just a succession of scary stuff happening, haunted-ride-style.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Shaft
    In the end, this may be a case of a pop-culture icon being dragged down by the weight of trying remain relevant past its prime. It’s not woke, but you can’t call it racist. Maybe racist-ish. Misogynistic-ish. Entertaining-ish.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Avengers: Endgame
    For fans, counting up how many superheroes can emerge from the clown car of one three-hour movie is half the fun. For casual moviegoers — say, those who might skip minor installments such as “Ant-Man and the Wasp” — it accounts for half the exhaustion, a bit of world-building fatigue to go along with the sensory overload of a fantasy realm that seems stuck in perpetual apocalypse.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    The Public
    [Estevez] still hasn't progressed beyond the film-school basics, but somehow he managed to recruit an all-star cast of (presumably) like-minded activists for The Public.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    The Highwaymen
    Directed by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks), it’s a well-crafted procedural, but it’s also a whole lot of familiar tropes put together in familiar ways.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
    One kudo to this lazy effort: The climax does have a real end-of-a-trilogy feel, making further sequels less likely. Silver linings, folks.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Escape Room
    At least it could have been fun-bad, not just boring-bad.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
    While it is a perfectly serviceable placeholder in the larger series, its contributions to the Potterverse are disappointingly minor.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
    Fans of fancy period costumes and supernatural effects both get plenty to gawk at, but the story offers no real surprises, and that includes the big plot twist.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Bohemian Rhapsody
    If it doesn’t have the family drama of “Walk the Line” or the psychodrama of “The Doors,” Bohemian Rhapsody does deliver what any music biopic must: convincing characters and some kick-butt simulated concert experiences.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Fahrenheit 11/9
    This brand of gonzo journalism was effective in Moore’s 1989 debut about Flint and General Motors, “Roger & Me,” but it has long since devolved into self-parody.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    God Bless the Broken Road
    Like nine out of 10 faith-based films, it lets the message crowd out the other elements of good art: character development, thematic complexity, even basics such as a compelling conflict.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Operation Finale
    The acting is great, but screenwriter Matthew Orton’s attempts to give the film the philosophical heft that it deserve fall somewhat short.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Kerry Lengel
    Alpha
    It delivers plenty of exciting action with some CGI-assisted visual flair, from stampeding bison to a starkly beautiful image of a frozen lake with our hero flailing on the wrong side of the ice. Hughes’ efforts to bring emotional drama to the proceedings fall flat, however, relying on coming-of-age clichés that strip the story of any real surprise.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Kerry Lengel
    The Darkest Minds
    It’s formulaic. It’s predictable.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
    It’s a lazy, thoroughly unoriginal bit of storytelling, but it has just enough cheeky humor and bass-thumping action scenes to be a potential crowd-pleaser.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    The Man Who Invented Christmas
    It lays on the pathos, moralizing and forced whimsy thicker than figgy pudding, but it’s still entertaining, heart-warming family fare, thanks in large part to charmingly sincere performances.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Kerry Lengel
    Risk
    Artfully shot and mooded-up with a jittery ambient soundtrack, Risk is compelling because the enigma of Assange is compelling.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Below Her Mouth
    While Below Her Mouth is no doubt some classy-looking porn, it’s a pretty lousy movie, because all that sex leaves precious little time to develop character, plot or thematic depth.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Man Down
    I can give the filmmakers — director Dito Montiel and screenwriter Adam G. Simon — the benefit of the doubt on good intentions, but their approach doesn’t tug at the heartstrings so much as it pistol-whips the audience with its grandiose and (ineptly) manipulative storytelling.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Trolls
    The characters are clichés and the plot is assembly-line predictable.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Kerry Lengel
    Equals
    The final resolution of the plot is actually rather intriguing, but the journey to it is so slow and predictable that most moviegoers will have long since lost interest.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 40 Kerry Lengel
    Warcraft
    It aims to match the mythic gravitas of “The Lord of the Rings” — even throwing in a nod to the Book of Exodus for good measure — and the results fall paint-by-numbers flat.
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