Maitland McDonagh

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Film Journal International, TV Guide Magazine
For 2,280 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 53% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 10.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Maitland McDonagh's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 55
Highest review score: 100 Devil in a Blue Dress
Lowest review score: 0 The Hottie & the Nottie
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 738 out of 2280
  2. Mixed: 1,265 out of 2280
  3. Negative: 277 out of 2280
2280 movie reviews
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    • 38 Metascore
    • 67 Maitland McDonagh
    The Abandoned
    First-time feature director Eytan Rockaway (also producer and co-author, with screenwriter Ido Funk, of the film's story) does a commendable job of ratcheting up the scary atmosphere and images.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Maitland McDonagh
    Welcome Home
    Welcome Home also features surprisingly strong performances from Ratajkowski, Scamarcio and Paul (“Breaking Bad”) and ends with a nifty little parting shot whose implicit condemnation of mindlessly consuming the lives of others should give audiences a little chill.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Maitland McDonagh
    Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
    Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is a truly engrossing film, one that balances the big picture and the small one.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 38 Maitland McDonagh
    Speed Kills
    Ultimately, Speed Kills feels startlingly like a 1990s direct-to-video action movie with an inexplicably inflated budget.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Maitland McDonagh
    Overlord
    Overlord, produced and presumably overseen by J.J. Abrams, is good, bloody fun, with all the polish and production value that come with not being a low-budget exploitation movie.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 67 Maitland McDonagh
    Don't Go
    Don’t Go is sufficiently subtle that some viewers will find it dull and lacking in traditionally “scary” moments. But others will appreciate the care with which it walks the line between supernatural and psychological horror.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 75 Maitland McDonagh
    The Super
    The Super is well written and acted—two things that should be givens but often aren’t, especially in genre films
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Maitland McDonagh
    Suspiria
    It’s a smart reimagining, but not a particularly compelling one, which is the problem overall.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 63 Maitland McDonagh
    Chasing the Blues
    The film’s pleasures are small ones, but they’re perfectly pitched and anyone who’s ever collected anything will empathize with the depth of Alan and Paul’s passion, if not their actions.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 85 Maitland McDonagh
    A Crooked Somebody
    A Crooked Somebody (the title derives from pastor Sam’s unheeded advice that “it’s better to be an honest nobody…”) is a meticulously balanced blend of character-based drama and genre conventions.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 38 Maitland McDonagh
    Peppermint
    Peppermint is a bloody crowd-pleaser, but it’s fundamentally forgettable, the kind of movie whose details begin to disappear the moment the credits roll.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Maitland McDonagh
    Older Than Ireland
    Older Than Ireland isn't relentlessly upbeat. It's filled with stories of loss, disappointment, tough lessons learned and compromises made, and it's hard not to suspect that the genetic hand you're dealt counts for a lot.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 20 Maitland McDonagh
    Reprisal
    The bottom line is that Reprisal is an extremely silly movie doing its damnedest to look tough and gritty and clever, none of which it is. In fact, it’s both tediously formulaic and weirdly puzzling.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Maitland McDonagh
    Blood Fest
    It’s clearly meant to be a light romp –a party movie to be enjoyed in group settings—and it is.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 78 Maitland McDonagh
    What Keeps You Alive
    Writer-director Colin Minihan’s thriller is tightly plotted and delivers a couple of terrific shocks, shocks that are firmly rooted in character
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Maitland McDonagh
    Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich
    Funny little Nazis require rather more finesse than The Littlest Reich possesses.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Maitland McDonagh
    Elizabeth Harvest
    The film isn’t a genre changer, but it’s elegant and admirably remorseless—and when it breaks bad, it breaks very bad indeed.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 65 Maitland McDonagh
    14 Cameras
    What makes it play is Archambault, who gives a strikingly unpleasant performance as Gerald.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 30 Maitland McDonagh
    China Salesman
    If it were half an hour shorter, China Salesman (released overseas as Deadly Contract, the epitome of generic titling) might be a candidate for “so bad it’s good (or at least kind of fun)” status. But it’s not.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Maitland McDonagh
    MirrorMask
    Though the story meanders, the film's look is nothing short of breathtaking.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Maitland McDonagh
    Music of the Heart
    It all seems terribly familiar.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Maitland McDonagh
    Beyond Vanilla
    Though this frank documentary about extreme sexual practices comes with a cautionary message, it could perhaps use a stronger one.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Maitland McDonagh
    Osmosis Jones
    While there's no denying that the film's animation is technically impressive and is sometimes quite clever, its inventiveness is frequently at the service of gags so distasteful that gag is the operative word.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Maitland McDonagh
    Scooby-Doo
    As live-action adaptations of cheap, unapologetically stupid cartoons go, this is top of the line: The cast is appealing, the sets brightly colored and fun to look at, the mystery as lame and goofy as any featured in the many inexplicably beloved Scooby-Doo cartoons.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Maitland McDonagh
    Praying with Lior
    Thoroughly heartfelt. But though Trachtman alludes to the impact that Lior's special needs and local fame has had on his family, she seems uninterested in exploring the larger history of beliefs and traditions concerning mentally challenged people and their closeness to God.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 63 Maitland McDonagh
    The X Files: I Want to Believe
    The Carter and Spotnitz's credit, such weighty concerns aren't the stuff of most mainstream genre movies. But they're also not sufficiently gripping to transform a middling thriller into something truly provocative or haunting.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Maitland McDonagh
    Celsius 41.11: The Temperature at Which the Brain... Begins to Die
    As provocative as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," but nowhere near as engaging.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Maitland McDonagh
    The Longest Yard
    Sandler's performance is aimed squarely at the fans who love his smarty-pants man-boy shtick and Rock gets off some funny lines, but overall this is one dreary, formulaic slog through sports-movie cliches.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 20 Maitland McDonagh
    The Dinner Game
    This stage-bound farce could easily be an American sitcom: It's all slamming doors, eavesdropping and stupid miscommunications, garnished with a heavy-handed helping of comedy of humiliation.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Maitland McDonagh
    The Devil's Own
    An earnest, thoughtful, surprisingly well-written (given the number of writers who worked on it) drama about guilt and betrayal that features excellent performances by Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt and dares to defy the juvenile wham bam thank you ma'am aesthetics that have turned mainstream action pictures into feature-length video games.
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