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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    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Maitland McDonagh
    The Host
    Boon's film is both funny and heartbreaking, a supremely confident mix of political satire, free-floating paranoia, fractured family dynamics and the kind of comedy that regularly reconfigures itself into tragedy.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Maitland McDonagh
    Private Property
    Lafosse's razor sharp dissection of relationships strained to the breaking point is hypnotic in a road-accident kind of way.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Maitland McDonagh
    Out of Sight
    Steven Soderbergh's direction conjures an understated '70s vibe, striking an apparently effortless balance between grit and glamour.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Maitland McDonagh
    In the Shadow of the Moon
    By turns awe-inspiring and deeply human.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Maitland McDonagh
    The Big Risk
    Feels astonishingly fresh, filled with subtle performances and devastatingly understated images - Sautet's final shot of Davos alone in a Paris crowd is a killer.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Maitland McDonagh
    Children of Men
    The screenplay, which differs significantly from the novel, is uneven, but the distorted mirror it holds up to the present is disturbingly clear.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Maitland McDonagh
    Men in Black
    Extravagant special effects notwithstanding, this is really a triumph of casting: The aplomb with which Jones plays wry straight man to Smith's street-smart wiseacre is terrifically enjoyable.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Maitland McDonagh
    American Beauty
    Black comedy of the deepest, richest darkness laid over an aching meditation on the atrophy of dreams.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Maitland McDonagh
    Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back
    The film's greatest incidental pleasures are images of a time when outlaw musicians wore suit jackets and the craggy Dylan was a delicate, unconventionally handsome young man.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 50 Maitland McDonagh
    See Spot Run
    Fart, feces and gonad gags notwithstanding, this knockabout comedy is no more vulgar than most contemporary children's films, and more good-natured than many.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Maitland McDonagh
    Medea
    In light of the aesthetic of ugliness that informs von Trier's Dogme films, it's easy to forget how subtly beautiful his work once was.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Maitland McDonagh
    Volver
    Crammed with outrageous turns of fortune and quicksilver shifts in tone, Almodovar's film is held together by performances so subtle and complex it's hard to single out only one as exceptional. But Cruz is astonishing.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Maitland McDonagh
    King Arthur
    An Arthurian tale minus everything the average person knows or cares about Arthur and his knights.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Maitland McDonagh
    The Quiet American
    The second version of Graham Greene's sad and prescient 1955 novel about American involvement in Vietnam hews far closer to the book than the first, preserving the sophisticated ambiguity of his depiction of a tangled struggle for power played out on both personal and political fronts.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Maitland McDonagh
    Mystic River
    If he were a more subtle director, it would be a great film; as it is, it's an extremely good one, anchored by the subtly devastating performances of Penn, Robbins and Bacon. The supporting cast is equally good, and blue collar Boston's mean streets take on a beaten-down life of their own.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Maitland McDonagh
    Willard
    Production-designed within an inch of its life, this remake's best conceit is the casting of Crispin Glover as its socially maladroit rat fancier.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Maitland McDonagh
    Small Voices
    The end is hardly in doubt, since this sweet-natured film treads a path worn smooth and hard by countless other tiny feet. Its message is as unimpeachable as it is familiar, differentiated from countless similar tales only by the Filipino setting.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Maitland McDonagh
    Crazy in Alabama
    (Griffith's) appearance often verges on the grotesque. Which, come to think of it, could be said of the movie as well.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Maitland McDonagh
    Phone Booth
    The payoff doesn't quite equal the intensity of the spectacularly squirm-inducing premise, but Farrell takes his showboating star turn and runs with it.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Maitland McDonagh
    Bomb the System
    In the end it's all seductive surface and no substance, but Lough has a bold eye and a vivid sense of uniquely urban beauty.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 70 Maitland McDonagh
    Vampire's Kiss
    But what truly distinguishes the movie is Cage's performance, which is so off the wall that even if you don't like it you have to watch in awe.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Maitland McDonagh
    Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
    The battle sequences and lightsaber battles are gripping, and for every scene that doesn't deliver the goods, there's another that hums with surprising intensity.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 38 Maitland McDonagh
    AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem
    The film's major draws are R-rated gore and some nice physical effects, proof that a man in a top-of-the-line monster suit can still be more effective than CGI.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 75 Maitland McDonagh
    Fay Grim
    Clever, fast-paced and surprisingly moving.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Maitland McDonagh
    The Replacement Killers
    This melodramatic action opera is a lurid love letter to the guns and poses aesthetic of Hong Kong action cinema.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Maitland McDonagh
    Spider-Man 2
    The rare sequel that actually improves on the original, this robust entertainment's intelligence and emotional impact belie conventional wisdom that summer movie spectaculars are by nature brainless nonsense and only a stupid snob would complain about their cynical insubstantiality.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Maitland McDonagh
    The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
    Like "Air Guitar Nation," the stranger-than-fiction cast of characters is fascinating, and their high-stakes machinations are nothing short of mind-boggling.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Maitland McDonagh
    Quills
    Censorship, madness, social rebellion and the power of art.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Maitland McDonagh
    Spider
    Its minutely detailed revelations work their way under the skin like slivers of glass.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Maitland McDonagh
    Kill Bill: Vol. 2
    Tarantino maintains a flawless balance between flat-out action, quirky dialogue, stylish homages to the glistening shadows of film-noir thrillers, the sun-baked brutality of Westerns (American and Italian), the ritualistic rhythms of Shaw Brothers martial-arts pictures from the 1970s and quietly dramatic moments, shifting between them with quicksilver facility.
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