Lawrence Toppman

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Charlotte Observer
For 1,622 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 56% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Lawrence Toppman's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Down in the Delta
Lowest review score: 0 Left Behind
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,064 out of 1622
  2. Mixed: 275 out of 1622
  3. Negative: 283 out of 1622
1622 movie reviews
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per page
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    War Horse
    For certain movies, the adjectives "formulaic" and "predictable" are complimentary. War Horse is one of them.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Eagle Huntress
    This is an extremely simple but likeable film.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Priceless
    The comedy, which verges on farce from time to time, also has the smilingly cynical approach to romance that we identify with the French.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Gangs of New York
    Each major character is complex, none more so than Bill. He's almost Shakespearean in scope.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Felicia's Journey
    Deep as a Canadian lake: Below the placid surface, menacing creatures swim around unseen.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Rookie
    The Rookie is "Rudy" in a baseball uniform.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Nowhere in Africa
    Writer-director Caroline Link (who did the Oscar-nominated "Beyond Silence") adapted Stefanie Zweig's expatriate memoir gracefully, languidly and with full understanding of its heroine.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    A Beautiful Mind
    Howard has never been so grown-up in his handling of tough themes or so inventive in depicting states of mind. Goldsman has never been so down-to-earth or created so touching a character.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 38 Lawrence Toppman
    Youth
    For all the talk about passion, the main feeling Youth conveys is self-pity.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Doctor Strange
    You know you’re in a top-drawer Marvel Comics adaptation when even the Stan Lee cameo is clever.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Ghost Town
    It's a smooth journey across familiar territory to a safe emotional harbor, always professional and occasionally delightful.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Closet
    Auteuil does an excellent job. He's like Marcello Mastroianni, whose naturalness also deluded people into thinking for a while that he wasn't a versatile actor.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Mostly Martha
    If you liked "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," you're on safe ground here -- Next time, I'd like to see Gedeck serve up a hearty meal instead of a tasty but unfilling appetizer.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Walk the Line
    Cash made some untamed, exhilarating sounds in its formative days. Walk the Line is strongest when it shows him in love with either his music or his muse.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Match Point
    Allen, rejuvenated by foreign settings, makes us appreciate posh parts of England as he always did Manhattan. (Credit cinematographer Remi Adefarasin for showing us how seductive upper-crust London can be.)
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    Given a choice between this and the navel-gazing of the novel, I'll take the short ride on a fast machine.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Lawrence Toppman
    Sideways
    U.S. geography doesn't matter to Payne. He always charts the terrain of the human heart, and he's among the wisest of mapmakers.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Lawrence Toppman
    The Imitation Game
    This suspenseful drama reveals pieces of its puzzle steadily and slowly, until the final heartrending picture can be seen at last. Remarkably, it comes from a screenwriter who had never had a feature film produced and a director who had never made one in English.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Tadpole
    Neuwirth vamps up a storm: She's like some silent-screen hellion sending lust rays out of bemused eyes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Spy Kids
    The film's full of in-jokes, from the Spanish-language billboards to the name of Banderas' character.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    All the Real Girls
    Wandering, atmospheric, episodic yet strangely appealing story of love.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Holes
    A richly satisfying adaptation of Louis Sachar's novel.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Lawrence Toppman
    The Big Lebowski
    They've never been farther into outer space than in The Big Lebowski. Fans (myself included) may cackle at absurd situations and in-jokes. But director Joel and producer Ethan, who write together, have never made so much clamorous ado about nothing. [6 March 1998, p.7E]
    • Charlotte Observer
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Under the Same Moon (La misma luna)
    It takes place on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and it offers an undeniable argument that life without love is unpalatable on either side.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Thank You for Smoking
    Fierce, fast and funny.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Lawrence Toppman
    Open Water
    I longed for something - anything - unexpected to occur. What I wouldn't have given for Wilson, the "Cast Away" volleyball, to float past with his bloody "face" print grinning at the pair!
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Pete's Dragon
    If the cast were less likeable, the predictability of the story might become wearisome. (Of course, it’s not likely to be predictable if you’re 9.) But all the actors, especially young Fegley and Laurence, engage us.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    The Good Girl
    Doesn't have the daring lunacy of "Chuck and Buck," the previous collaboration by director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White. Yet it gets closer to the troubled, lonely soul of its main character.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Intolerable Cruelty
    The results have the Coens' usual tartness most of the way, before turning soft and gooey at the center.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Tropic Thunder
    If you wait through the credits, you get one last joke in the fine print: The actors shot the whole movie in Hawaii, on the fabulously lush island of Kauai. So while they were shooting a story about indulged prima donnas, they were working themselves in one of the most tourist-friendly spots on Earth. You've gotta smile at that.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Red Eye
    A terrific thriller...until it turns into yet another Wes Craven movie.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Lawrence Toppman
    22 Jump Street
    “22” merits a B grade. The long final credits, in which Dickson imagines dozens of future scenarios for the undercover boys, kicks it up one notch.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Young Adult
    It's funny, in a can't-look-away-from-the-train-wreck way, and it's brutally honest. But it's not pretty.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    The Pledge
    Why on earth didn't Warner Bros. release this movie in time for Oscar consideration? Sure, it's bleak, depressing, sometimes painful to watch. But it would have been one of the best pictures of the year, and Nicholson (who hasn't done work of this caliber since "The Crossing Guard") might have been on the podium again.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    Nicholas Nickleby
    Many shallower movies these days seem too long, but this one is egregiously short.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Real Women Have Curves
    The film offers an unusually rounded picture of a Latino family. All the men work, getting up early to do blue-collar jobs that demand dedication and responsible behavior. (We don't see much of them, but they have a strong presence in the household.)
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Mad Hot Ballroom
    These kids may be too small for sports and may not be headed to college on academic scholarships. But for once, they've proven to the world and to themselves that they matter.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    This film has two of Fincher's happiest trademarks: It's full of information and stretches over a remarkably long time (165 minutes), yet it's neither confusing nor overextended.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Horton Hears a Who!
    Finally! For the first time, Hollywood has made a whimsical, witty, feature-length version of Dr. Seuss that's neither overblown nor smutty nor emotionally hollow.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Mansfield Park
    A love story more involved than I can easily explain.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Lawrence Toppman
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    Sometimes seeing a movie throws the source material into sharper relief.... Watching the textually faithful film adaptation by director Thomas Vinterberg and writer David Nicholls, though, the piece comes off more as a glossy, well-acted romance novel.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Lawrence Toppman
    Where the Wild Things Are
    Mature folks may wonder why a simple and simply beautiful story from their youth has been buried under layers of emotion Woody Allen's psychiatrist might want to pick over.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Roman de gare
    The film's not really a whodunit or even a whoizzit, so learning his identity matters less than what happens after he reveals it. The film becomes truly French in its attitudes toward thwarted ambition and emotion, right down to an ending that may strike Americans as melodramatic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Don't Breathe
    Director Fede Alvarez (who did the “Evil Dead” remake) masterfully sustains a little more than an hour of shocks. Eventually, though, he resorts to the ideas lazy or unobservant filmmakers employ.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Training Day
    He presides over the picture with such assurance that even longtime Denzel-watchers gape.
    • Charlotte Observer
    • 71 Metascore
    • 38 Lawrence Toppman
    Black Book
    The storytelling is inept and illogical.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Florence Foster Jenkins
    If you don’t confuse this with history – or with the French film “Marguerite,” a fictional piece loosely based on FFJ – you’ll come away touched. That’s mostly because of Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Descent
    At the heart of the film, beyond the human/crawler conflict, is the suppressed tension between Sarah and Juno. That Marshall bothered to include such a fillip sets him apart from run-of-the-mill scaremongers; it makes me want to see what else he's done and will do.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Sunshine
    The sunshine in Sunshine comes from women around him (Fiennes).
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Lawrence Toppman
    Get On Up
    The most important thing, though, is that we come away feeling we know him. He died on Christmas Day eight years ago, and people listening to samples of his music in rap and hip-hop may have no idea why he mattered. Now they’ll see.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Mrs Henderson Presents
    Unlike its subject, "Henderson" breaks no new ground. But like its reliable star, it's a welcome exponent of a valued tradition.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Prisoners
    Roger Deakins, probably the best living cinematographer never to win an Oscar (he’s 0-for-10), was behind the camera. So the picture never lets us down visually, even when the story occasionally strays.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Year of the Dog
    Until Year of the Dog, I've never seen a movie where someone obsessed over a puppy.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Lawrence Toppman
    Batman Begins
    For the first time since "X-Men," I was on the edge of my seat anticipating a sequel, wondering who'd play the Joker and how quickly Nolan - it must be Nolan! - can bring the next chapter of this story to the screen.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    The Tao of Steve
    Far too clever for its own good.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 38 Lawrence Toppman
    Hamlet
    Hamlet has audacity, intelligence, a provocative visual and musical style, virtually no poetry, a garbled story line weakened by savage cutting of the play, and a great yawning hole where a Hamlet ought to be.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    I Love You, Man
    Jon Favreau, J.K. Simmons, Thomas Lennon and half a dozen other capable comedians drift in and out. Yet the movie seems long even at 105 minutes.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 25 Lawrence Toppman
    The Ghost and the Darkness
    Kilmer is adequate, though he's always more interesting when allowed to play a character with a dark side; Patterson's too squeaky-clean for Kilmer to exploit the most useful part of his range. [12 Oct 1996, p.4G]
    • Charlotte Observer
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    Friday Night Lights
    It's a passably made, grittily acted slice of life in Texas that veers not an inch from the norm for this sort of picture.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Swimming Pool
    The film takes place half in English, half in French. The chilly, responsibility-laden world of British society contrasts with the sunny, relaxed quality of life in fare-thee-well France. If these seem like cliches, Ozon and Bernheim exploit them so adroitly that they never become stale.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    Narc
    Ray Liotta and Jason Patric do some of their best work in their underwritten roles, but don't be fooled: Nobody deserves any prizes here.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    Galaxy Quest
    The good-hearted Galaxy Quest delivers fun and confusion in equal measure, as it gently tweaks the fanaticism of "Star Trek"/"Star Wars" fans while validating it at the same time.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 38 Lawrence Toppman
    Vicky Cristina Barcelona
    Allen's laziness is startling, even in so mechanical a filmmaker. He uses a monotonous narrator to tell us what the characters think and do, though he then shows them performing the actions that have just been described.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Tsotsi
    To enjoy it, you have to make a leap of faith wide enough to sail over a Grand Canyon of disbelief.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Nice Guys
    Laughter trumps logic here, and the laughs flow freely.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Lawrence Toppman
    The Bronze
    The Bronze is one of those faux-naughty comedies that simply doesn’t have the courage of its lack of convictions.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Wilde
    Gilbert sets up a rhythm, telling the story in short scenes that proceed at a relaxed pace. The film never hurries, but it moves forward constantly. [26 Jun 1998, p.10E]
    • Charlotte Observer
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
    Button has a wide-eyed innocence that almost never palls. It strays far from the mind of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but often enough it came near to my heart.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Girlfight
    The effect is as potent as a straight right to the solar plexus.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Lawrence Toppman
    Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    This sequel is, by design, entirely absorbing and satisfying without being one whit memorable.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Lawrence Toppman
    Personal Velocity: Three Portraits
    The writing is self-consciously literary in a way that probably worked better on the page.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Emperor's New Groove
    Why is The Emperor's New Groove Disney's funniest animated movie in years? Because it's the least like a Disney animated movie.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Lawrence Toppman
    Prisoner of Paradise
    Its uniqueness lies in its juxtaposition of happy faces and unhappy realities, of fleeting expressions of art and culture undone by daily brutality.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Freaky Friday
    This is the first real family comedy I've seen in a long time: one honest enough to satisfy teens, wryly funny enough for adults and zany enough for little kids.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Thirteen
    Despite Hunter's terrific acting, the mom seems too unaware.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Lawrence Toppman
    Curse of the Golden Flower
    I can say only three good things about his latest martial arts picture, the incoherent The Curse of the Golden Flower: 1) Gong Li deserves better roles, 2) The costumes are astonishingly beautiful, and 3) Ummm...wow, how about those costumes!
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Meet the Patels
    This story of a guy looking for love in many of the wrong places turns out to be one of the happiest surprises of the movie year.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Doubt
    Blessedly, the kernel of the writing remains undisturbed, and its arguments are still powerful.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Hoax
    Wheeler and director Lasse Hallstrom don't want us to take anything too seriously.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
    It's obviously meant to help his presidential candidacy - why release it a month before the election, otherwise? - and for the first 7 minutes, it plays like a campaign commercial about young John's integrity, hard work and humble roots.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Lawrence Toppman
    Song of the Sea
    Moore makes no attempt at visual reality. The colors and drawings employ the flat design of a handsomely decorated book, and the children have the huge eyes, disproportionately large heads and small bodies you sometimes see in Japanese animation.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    21 Grams
    Despite juggled storytelling, the movie's compelling.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Lady in the Van
    If you want a glimpse of a damaged mind and a thorough look at an artist’s healthier psyche, you’ll be satisfied.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 38 Lawrence Toppman
    L'Auberge Espagnole
    Movies can certainly be worse than bad sitcoms, and this is one of them.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Contagion
    Though the movie short-changes us emotionally, it delivers a credible, disheartening picture of greed and panic.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    Cinderella Man
    The performances do shine out through this dramatic miasma.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Bad Santa
    An unrepentantly rude, anti-seasonal dish of malice and mischief. Director Terry Zwigoff works from a story that originated with the Coen brothers and passed through at least four writers, including him...The results may leave you aghast or breathless with laughter, but you won't be neutral.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Fearless
    Li plays haughty, brilliant wushu master Huo Yuanjia, whose recklessness leads to tragedy after he becomes a champion at the end of the 19th century.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    No Country for Old Men
    The Coen brothers have never really accepted the idea that a movie has to have a plot. Offbeat characters, sure. Oblique dialogue that sounds meaningful and occasionally is so, absolutely. Eye-catching cinematography and a subtle, mood-reinforcing soundtrack, no question. Irony layered on thickly as cheese in good lasagna, yes. But a narrative that makes sense from end to end? Well, one doesn't have room for everything.
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