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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    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    Here’s a paradox: The millions of people who have read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are the panting target audience for the Swedish-language film adaptation. Yet they’re also likeliest to be disappointed by this carefully crafted drama, while people who haven’t read the book are likely to enjoy the movie and wonder what the literary fuss is about.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    A loving interpretation of C.S. Lewis's beloved parable for children, and it's almost perfect in every detail. Yet there's the one difficulty: It's almost perfect in every detail, fully realized in too few.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
    Hank Greenberg was to Jews what Jackie Robinson was to African Americans: a great athlete, handsome and hard-working, who took the first line of abuse from bigots and proved that his people belonged at the highest level of professional sports.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 38 Lawrence Toppman
    Mistress America
    I think Baumbach and Gerwig mean Brooke to be a life-affirming free spirit who can’t find a place in our mercenary world. Instead, she comes off as selfish, rude, deluded, irresponsible and mean-spirited.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Young@Heart
    British director Stephen Walker approached this project with wide-eyed good humor.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Lawrence Toppman
    Love and Other Drugs
    Gyllenhaal and Hathaway exert considerable powers of hangdog charm and fierce independence, trying to give firm shape to the saggy script. But if you want to watch these two struggle through an up-and-down screen relationship, rent "Brokeback Mountain."
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Man on the Train
    Unobtrusively satisfying.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    All Things Must Pass
    The documentary stays entirely within the corporate world of record sales, which may seem an airless atmosphere to someone who never haunted such joints. Yet the movie gradually expands to give us a somewhat larger picture of the music business.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Lawrence Toppman
    The Trip to Italy
    Winterbottom has darkened the tone: The final scene takes place during a golden sunset that brings no closure to either man.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Lovely & Amazing
    Watching Lovely and Amazing is like coming into a long-running, well-written television series where you've missed the first half-dozen episodes and probably won't see the next six.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Joy Ride
    A horror film that doesn't wear out a moment of its welcome.
    • Charlotte Observer
    • 75 Metascore
    • 25 Lawrence Toppman
    The Wolf of Wall Street
    Here’s something I never expected to say, something I doubt I’d have believed if someone else had said it to me: Martin Scorsese can make a three-hour movie without one fresh perspective or compelling character from end to end. The proof, for three agonizing hours, can be found in The Wolf of Wall Street.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Dark Horse
    Veteran documentary-maker Louise Osmond directs with flair. She gives us just enough of the history of Blackwood to show what Dream Alliance means to the place, and she gets us inside the horse’s head.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Sweet Land
    Top honors go to Guinee, who steadily builds his character from tiny details, and Reaser, who's understood through eyes and attitude while speaking a hodgepodge of German, Norwegian and English.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    The Cider House Rules
    To adapt it for a 130-minute movie, Irving ruthlessly cut away subplots, eliminated supporting characters and pared down the traits of the ones that remain.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Tumbleweeds
    The film isn't quite as striking as its star, but it's just as honest.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Croupier
    There may not be much meat in Hodges' stew, but the sauce was so tasty I felt satisfied after the light meal.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    The Crucible
    Ryder puts fire into both Abigail's pants and her belly, aided by makeup that makes her seem as much victim as victimizer. [20 Dec 1996, p.1E]
    • Charlotte Observer
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Invisible Woman
    Fiennes isn’t naturally an outgoing performer, and he’s playing the most extroverted author in English history. So he does his best work in intimate moments, when Dickens finds himself at a loss for words.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    The Bourne Ultimatum
    For once, I didn't feel cheated by an unresolved ending, but let's hope this is the end. Robert Ludlum wrote three Bourne novels, and this is one series that ought not to be dishonored by inferior sequels.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Enchanted
    Enchanted charmingly reworks all the old favorites while incorporating fresh twists of its own.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
    I never did sort out the gangsters fighting for control of a 19th-century town, nor did I figure out exactly what happened to the main henchman. But I was rarely bored.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Shrek 2
    It has the charm, irony and saucy wit of the original, plus two supporting characters -- a suave, egocentric feline and a cheerfully conniving fairy godmother -- who are funnier than anyone in "Shrek."
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Lawrence Toppman
    Our Little Sister
    By the end, a Zen-like calm that might be mistaken for stasis settles over the story. But these lives move forward slowly, inexorably, and they move us, too.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Lawrence Toppman
    Night Moves
    All three leads give effective, low-key performances. (I don’t remember a single character raising a voice.) Their acting fits the tone of this movie and all the ones Reichardt directs: Her camera moves slowly, and she accumulates tension by showing detail after detail.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Captain America: Civil War
    Captain America: Civil War appeals to me more strongly than any superhero movie of the last decade.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    The Kid Stays in the Picture
    Evans makes a terrific raconteur, imitating voices and putting us behind the scenes.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Startup.com
    The coolest film in town offers industrial espionage, power struggles, thwarted romance, betrayal and suspense - and best of all, it's true.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Lawrence Toppman
    Roger Dodger
    Starts as a tart little lemon drop of a movie and ends up as a bitter pill. I'm glad to have seen it, for I appreciated Campbell Scott's dominant performance and Jesse Eisenberg's breakthrough. But I hope writer-director Dylan Kidd mixes less acid into the next drink he pours.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Lawrence Toppman
    Beauty in Trouble
    What director Jan Hrebejk and writer Petr Jarchovský are talking about is the Czech Republic, ravaged for decades by communism and then left to fend for itself in a world to which it can scarcely adjust.
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