Kyle Smith

Select another critic »
New York Post, Wall Street Journal
For 1,913 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 35% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 64% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 13.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Kyle Smith's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 52
Highest review score: 100 The Birth of a Nation
Lowest review score: 0 Victor Frankenstein
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 789 out of 1913
  2. Mixed: 407 out of 1913
  3. Negative: 717 out of 1913
1913 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 84 Metascore
    • 40 Kyle Smith
    Hamnet
    As dry and matter-of-fact as Ms. Zhao was in Nomadland, which won her Oscars for best director and best picture (as she was one of its producers), she is the opposite here, driving her actors to maximal emoting. The movie purports to dip into the deep well of Shakespearean magnificence but emerges only with a ladle full of greasy schmaltz.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 25 Kyle Smith
    Old Joy
    You must lead a dull life if it would be enlivened by 76 minutes' worth of Old Joy.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 38 Kyle Smith
    Arthur
    Attempting to fill Dudley Moore's top hat in Arthur, Russell Brand rapidly descends the rungs of the comedy ladder from "unfunny" to "irritating" to "vulgar" to the bottom one - "Andy Dick."
    • 84 Metascore
    • 63 Kyle Smith
    Iraq in Fragments
    All three segments are heavy on blame-America speeches, which may be a fair snapshot of Iraqi opinion, but it's strange how fond Longley seems to be of Saddam Hussein.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Kyle Smith
    The Cove
    Two fins up for The Cove, a documentary that whales on evil Japanese fishermen who kill dolphins for lunch meat.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Kyle Smith
    Universal Language
    The oblique nature of the final act might perhaps be justified if the rest of the movie were better. As it is, I kept thinking, “I guess that’s funny, in a way” rather than actually laughing at any of Mr. Rankin’s aggressively whimsical notions.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Kyle Smith
    Crazy Heart
    Can’t possibly deserve your close attention. Yet it does, with distilled honky-tonk poetry and generous good humor. It’s one of the year’s best, most deeply felt films.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Kyle Smith
    De Palma
    Sharp, funny and as mesmerizing as the master’s notoriously languorous suspense scenes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Kyle Smith
    Memory
    The direct, intimate way in which the movie is filmed and acted, however, makes it an affecting study of two people’s attempts to forge some kind of relationship despite huge psychic damage on both sides.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Kyle Smith
    Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
    A big warm cinematic jelly doughnut stuffed with youth, vitality, style, whimsy and other equally alarming properties. I tried to love it. But after 20 minutes, I sensed I was intruding on the movie's love affair with itself.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Kyle Smith
    Under the Shadow
    Any parent who has ever scrambled desperately to find a doll to appease a wailing child as though it were a life-and-death situation will appreciate the wit of this multilayered, dread-soaked chamber piece.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Kyle Smith
    The Place Beyond the Pines
    Don't let the quiet, indie stylings of The Place Beyond the Pines fool you. This is a big movie with a lot on its mind. Slowly, it unfolds into a kind of epic.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Kyle Smith
    Hitchcock
    When Hopkins' Hitch directs the audience by waving his hands like a symphony conductor - it's a nice callback to a Hannibal Lecter highlight - it's one of the best scenes of the year: a delightfully personal way to show how the story of "Psycho" concluded.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Kyle Smith
    Fay Grim
    Fay Grim is like watching stoners playing Risk and Clue at the same time.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Kyle Smith
    The Perfect Neighbor
    The climax, in which police slowly drag the truth out of the central figure, is harrowing.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Kyle Smith
    20 Days in Mariupol
    The narrator tells us that a doctor said to him, “War is like an X-ray. All human insides become visible. Good people become better; bad people, worse.” Such astute observations, together with the harrowing imagery, lift “20 Days in Mariupol” to the ranks of the great war documentaries.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Kyle Smith
    '71
    It’s a rare film that locates viciousness and kindness on both sides of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Kyle Smith
    Full Time
    Without exaggerating any characteristic of suburban-mom life, steering clear of sentimentality or contrivance, Mr. Gravel succeeds breathtakingly in making us appreciate how much grit is contained in the Julies of the world.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Kyle Smith
    Project Nim
    Deep, disturbing and funny.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Kyle Smith
    Animal Kingdom
    The film is shaky as a procedural, and the level of official corruption seems more Moscow than Melbourne. Yet as a fable of power, vengeance and betrayal it exerts a quiet, increasingly wicked pull, equivalent to that of the wrinkly but ruthless grandma.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 50 Kyle Smith
    Hugo
    Young Hugo (Asa Butterfield), a boy who literally lives inside the clocks he manages in a grand Paris train station in the 1930s, embodies one problem that bedeviled even Dickens: He's boringly nice.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 50 Kyle Smith
    The LEGO Movie
    As cute and energetic as it is, The Lego Movie is more exhausting than fun, too unsure of itself to stick with any story thread for too long. The action scenes are enthusiastic, colorful but uninvolving, like an 8-year-old emptying a bucket of plastic blocks.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 50 Kyle Smith
    Drag Me to Hell
    Drag Me to Hell is pure cheese. Goat cheese.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Kyle Smith
    The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
    Not since "300" have I seen such manly mano-a-mano-ing as the iron clash of wills in the docu mentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 40 Kyle Smith
    Evil Does Not Exist
    As pleasing as the film may be to those who treasure ambiguity and nuance, it strikes me as dry and tedious.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Kyle Smith
    56 Up
    56 Up is as good a point as any to get hooked on the magnificent half-century series of documentaries, beginning in 1964 with "7 Up."
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Kyle Smith
    U2 3D
    The movie all but proclaims U2 the world's best rock band. Somewhere, Mick Jagger's jaws are grinding.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Kyle Smith
    Lake of Fire
    A great abortion documentary might leave you guessing which side of the debate the director was on. Lake of Fire is not that film, but it comes somewhat close.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Kyle Smith
    Tyson
    Gives a taste of what it might be like to live inside Mike Tyson's mind.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Kyle Smith
    Footnote
    Once it calms down and stops trying to be funny, it turns into a thoughtful and intriguing drama.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »