Liam Lacey

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Original-Cin, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
For 1,802 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Liam Lacey's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Citizenfour
Lowest review score: 0 Vacation
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,089 out of 1802
  2. Mixed: 514 out of 1802
  3. Negative: 199 out of 1802
1802 movie reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Liam Lacey
    Solo
    Solo largely succeeds, thanks to Dupuis’ confident handling of the tonal shifts between off- and onstage scenes in a series of stylishly lit interiors. The performances feel grounded and credible, with Pellerin especially good in revealing Simon’s contradictions, between anxious vulnerability and resilience.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Waitress
    Waitress is sweet, uneven and, ultimately, a heartbreaker.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Prodigal Sons
    Kimberly Reed’s debut documentary, Prodigal Sons, would make a terribly contrived novel, but is a compelling and sensational real-life story.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Liam Lacey
    The Monk and the Gun
    Fans of action films as Top Gun, American Sniper or Hobo with a Shotgun may be disappointed by the absence of splatter, though The Monk and the Gun achieves is own kind of sardonic catharsis.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
    Abramovic is a sensationally attractive narcissist and the filmmakers are clearly smitten with her, but the film goes a long way to establish the intellectual seriousness and dedication involved in her ambitious series of art stunts.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Monster
    As angry, deluded, vulnerable and confused as Aileen is, the character remains an enigma. Apart from serving as an opportunity for Theron's emotionally deep-dredging performance, the movie doesn't know why it exists.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    The Lady and the Duke
    Rohmer doesn't attempt to create any skepticism about Grace's perspective on her experiences; we are shown them as she saw them, and seeing is the real pleasure of The Lady and the Duke.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Frankenweenie
    You have to feel pleased just for the existence of a film like Tim Burton's Frankenweenie. A 3-D, black-and-white, stop-motion animated film, it's a one-man blow for cinematic biodiversity.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Rize
    The Clowns and the Krumpers have a rivalry that parallels the Bloods and the Crips battle for the neighbourhood, but fought out in moves, not bullets.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Liam Lacey
    The Grey Zone
    When the larger question cannot be answered, the lesser one -- "What would you have done?" -- seems beside the point.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Liam Lacey
    Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
    If the word masterpiece has any use these days, it must apply to the film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, a mature, philosophically resonant work from Turkey's leading director, 53-year-old Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Climates, Distance, Three Monkeys).
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Liam Lacey
    The Captive
    Without a thin tether to credibility, this fussy, morbid fantasy simply slides off into the void.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Flushed Away
    This is a sewer blessedly free of actual sewage, which makes Flushed Away more kid-friendly than, say, the average "South Park" episode.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    Smart, serious and deftly composed, New York director Jill Sprecher's jigsaw anthology film, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, is the kind of work you want to applaud just for its ambitions.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Liam Lacey
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    Though not as instantly charming as The Little Mermaid, nor as cheerfully revisionist as Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback rates as one of the best animated Disney features of the past rich decade. [21 June 1996, p.C1]
    • The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Liam Lacey
    The Rest of Us
    There’s a risk of overselling a modest movie like The Rest of Us, which feels a little pat and self-congratulatory in its resolution. But it’s generous spirited and, at 80 minutes, doesn’t overstay its welcome.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    The Half of It
    At its best moments, it provides a warm contemporary take on intergender friendships and almost lives up to its philosophical pretensions.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Liam Lacey
    Kundun
    A great film about a good man.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Liam Lacey
    Winnie the Pooh
    The narrative, cobbled together from various Pooh stories by an army of writers, is held together reasonably well by John Cleese's soothing narration.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Liam Lacey
    Millions
    The film is small-scale, cleverly crafted and feels like a more expensive version of the sort of "dramedy" they produce by the truckload at the BBC.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Liam Lacey
    Gods and Monsters
    As a portrait of a deliciously eccentric individual, Gods and Monsters features a vivid performance from Ian McKellen that makes you think not of James Whale but of Ian McKellen.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Liam Lacey
    Golden Door
    As lovely to look at as it is dramatically inert.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    In Darkness
    Though the conclusion is foregone, Canadian screenwriter David F. Shamoon's script manages to extract suspense out of Poldek's ruthless, calculating nature.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Go
    Like circus acrobats who bounce up smiling, the characters end up on their feet, and you realize in retrospect that they survived because somebody, finally, stopped to think. A final thought on Go: Go.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Liam Lacey
    Interstellar
    While it’s technically eye-popping and intricately structured, Interstellar is at its most fascinating when it struggles hard to communicate those things we human beings call “emotions”. Instead, we get something like a freeze-dried approximation of Steven Spielberg at his most sentimental.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
    For such a mush-ball teen movie, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants carries a welcome amount of grown-up emotional truth.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Howl's Moving Castle
    With its bold screen-filling imagery, this is definitely a movie to be relished on the big screen.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    Nine Queens
    Often more ingenious in appearance than fact. The hunter-gets-captured-by-the-game scenario is predictable and the sequence of shell games does not, when reconsidered, actually add up.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Liam Lacey
    House of Sand and Fog
    There is both a sense of disappointment and relief when House of Sand and Fog crosses over into improbability, when the viewer can sit back, breathe easy again. All this trouble over the failure to open an envelope.
    • 16 Metascore
    • 25 Liam Lacey
    Kangaroo Jack
    In the life-is-too-short category, file Kangaroo Jack as a sub-Farrelly Brothers, dumb-plus-dumber buddy picture.
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