Mark Keizer

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Boxoffice Magazine, The A.V. Club, Variety
For 95 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 34% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 62% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 9.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Mark Keizer's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 56
Highest review score: 91 Decision to Leave
Lowest review score: 20 Burzynski
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 95
  2. Mixed: 60 out of 95
  3. Negative: 8 out of 95
95 movie reviews
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    • 40 Metascore
    • 58 Mark Keizer
    Meg 2: The Trench
    It’s faint, if legitimate, praise to say that The Meg 2: The Trench is better than the first film because, while it repeats everything the first film did wrong, it improves on everything it did right. It lacks the drive, imagination, and sense of awe to work as a pastiche of Aliens, The Abyss, Jaws, and Jurassic Park. But the more fulsomely the movie embraces its big budget, DVD-era silliness, the longer it and the audience are riding the same enjoyably stupid wave.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    A Man Called Otto
    Unlike Jack Nicholson or Bill Murray, whose smile can be either charming or sinister, Hanks always lets us know the character is headed towards redemption. A Man Called Otto would have been a more authentic emotional journey if he didn’t.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Emancipation
    A drama that aches to connect with the George Floyd era is more like amped-up misery porn, a Will Smith vanity project that pales next to more accomplished films about Black suffering that better remind us of our nation’s ongoing shame.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 42 Mark Keizer
    The Estate
    The execution is where it’s lacking: the wit, the timing, the headlong comic drive, and the ability to make us laugh at actions and dialogue that, in any other context, would be rude or distasteful.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Mark Keizer
    Call Jane
    Call Jane is a feminist work told with straight-arrow purpose. It assumes that the slightest melodrama would devalue the sacrifices these women made and the community they created. If that’s a miscalculation, the movie is still effective and enlightening—and a worthy companion to 2022’s The Janes, an excellent nonfiction documentary on this remarkable cooperative.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Mark Keizer
    Wendell & Wild
    Selick and Peele operate a bit at cross purposes in Wendell & Wild. The genius visualist wants to haunt our dreams. The socially engaged provocateur wants to haunt our troubled collective realities. Whatever doesn’t quite mesh in their collaboration is easier to forgive when feasting upon such extraordinary sights.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Mark Keizer
    Decision to Leave
    The South Korean director, working at the top of his game, drops tantalizing clues that are best analyzed in multiple viewings which, it can be reported from first-hand experience, will be very helpful.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Dead for A Dollar
    Ultimately, Hill performs his duties like a man for hire in Dead For A Dollar, much like Max Borland is a man for hire down in Mexico.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Mark Keizer
    The Good House
    Weaver is so forceful and present she can plow through the movie’s flaws until we fail to notice them. For a film about denial, that sounds about right.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Mark Keizer
    Catherine Called Birdy
    Dunham has taken her oft-articulated concerns about women’s empowerment and self-determination and transported them to 13th-century England in Catherine Called Birdy, a charming, clever, and altogether delicious comeback film that redefines Dunham in a way that just recently seemed unlikely.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 42 Mark Keizer
    Jane
    Jaglom doesn’t ratchet up enough tension for Jane to work as a nail-biter and once the catfight in the pool begins, the film forfeits all claims of being any sort of exploration of trauma. So we’re left with a slow burn thriller where complicated YA issues and vengeful social media posts make for a less than potent mix.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 42 Mark Keizer
    The Retaliators
    The film teases us with hat-tips and in-jokes and then pushes them aside to become an ungainly horror mashup that works in pieces, most notably during its climatic free-for-all, but not as a whole. In The Retaliators, the storylines fly in as many directions as the blood.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Spin Me Round
    Spin Me Round is a nice-try attempt at a shapeshifting, fish-out-of-water rom-com that was probably funny in the room—but in the end, it doesn’t quite come together as a movie.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Mark Keizer
    Bodies Bodies Bodies
    Reijn, whose last directing effort was Instinct, the Netherland’s 2019 Best International Feature Film Oscar submission, directs with a loose, improvisational energy. If she keeps too loose a grip on the reigns, occasionally letting scenes meander, there’s another surprise or biting line of dialogue to get things back on track. While there’s plenty of blood and nasty kills, Reijn is not here to provide a true horror film experience.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Mark Keizer
    I Love My Dad
    Morosini, though, is smart enough to know that just grossing us out for 95 minutes is not a movie. So he tries to make his film dramatically credible. This proves more difficult, as he has nothing new or insightful to say about father-son relationships or the pernicious possibilities of social media. But managing to push the squirm-inducing envelope while still getting us to root for a reprehensible dad becomes its own sort of twisted achievement.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 42 Mark Keizer
    The Road to Galena
    It is a movie of tropes and clichés that argues, with generic earnestness and a near-total lack of surprise, that the city is a corrupting influence compared to the nurturing, sun-drenched simplicity of the country.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 42 Mark Keizer
    Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between
    The issues the movie attempts to tackle—parental expectations, heartbreak, anxiety over choosing the right path—have all been addressed better in other films.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Mark Keizer
    Beba
    It can be overwhelming at times, and it’s true that Huntt’s deeply rooted powers of introspection can sometimes curdle into self-absorption. But her lacerating honesty and restless, searching spirit make Beba a virtuoso bomb-drop of a documentary.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Mark Keizer
    Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
    It’s a sexually frank and intimate story told in a pleasingly mainstream manner that avoids greeting card clichés and empty “girl power” posturing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Mark Keizer
    Official Competition
    Consistently amusing, if about a reel too long, it’s a tightly controlled, low-boil send-up of the acting process.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Mark Keizer
    Cha Cha Real Smooth
    Cha Cha Real Smooth has an unforced charm and lack of guile that’s refreshing and stops just short of being precious and ingratiating.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Mark Keizer
    The Righteous
    It’s steeped in a grave sense of portentousness that burrows under your skin. The issue is the weighty script, bleak and heavy with apocalyptic consequence, which contains undeniably intriguing notions that are often not satisfactorily explored or don’t quite cohere.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Mark Keizer
    Emergency
    It’s easy to imagine Williams taking this story and crafting either a boisterously funny, obstacle-filled mad dash to the hospital or an indignant, op-ed baiting thesis on post-George Floyd America. Instead, he turns down the heat and blends the two, creating a buddy comedy of errors shot through with an ever-darkening undercurrent of racial commentary.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Mark Keizer
    Montana Story
    This is a deeply felt work anchored by two earthy performances that stay small-scaled no matter how melodramatic the slowly revealed secrets become.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Firebird
    Prior and Zagorodnii have a fair amount of chemistry, although both are so Fashion Week gorgeous that it edges Firebird near soft-core territory.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Mark Keizer
    Paris, 13th District
    Unfolding at a relaxed pace and richly enhanced by DP Paul Guilhaume’s silky black and white images, Paris, 13th District is a candid, intimate, and authentic examination of the obstacles that keep young urbanites from connecting.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Mark Keizer
    The Girl and the Spider
    It pays off in a work of gorgeous stylistic precision where cautious glances and wistful anecdotes melt together to form a melancholy arthouse jewel about the tearing down of one woman’s identity.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Mark Keizer
    Cow
    Its observational shooting style is simple yet rich in quotidian detail. Its storytelling is morally neutral, yet charged with moments that obligate the viewer to question our treatment of farm animals.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Mark Keizer
    The Outfit
    Filled with twists and reversals that, for the most part, are motivated by character not plot, The Outfit is a nifty little period thriller that provides a showcase role for the always-amazing Mark Rylance.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Mark Keizer
    Only the Animals
    Ultimately, Moll’s film is a cautionary tale for the lonely among us, a reminder that one step away from idealizing romance lies the risk of becoming a fool for love, which just might get you killed.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Mark Keizer
    Two of Us
    The tale of two older women whose decades-long secret relationship is threatened after tragedy strikes covers emotional and thematic ground that transcends the sexual preferences of the two main characters.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    Impractical Jokers: The Movie
    Impractical Jokers: The Movie is an undistinguished and unnecessary extension of a brand whose primary attributes are likability, authenticity and relative modesty (given the worst impulses of the genre).
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Roger Waters: Us + Them
    A sonically superior if sometimes draggy affair that earns its stripes by affirming the timelessness of Waters’ thematic concerns and proving that fresh material doesn’t have to be the medicine we’re forced to swallow to hear the classics.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    The Pretenders
    While the film’s sense of experimentation carries a fair amount of intrigue, it traps its central threesome in an Easter egg-filled intellectual exercise punctuated by melodramatic strokes. It’s skillful enough to tickle the mind and the emotions but not effective enough to fully engage them.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    The Impossible
    The key selling point is Bayona's ten-minute reenactment of the tidal wave and its carnage, which is brutal, visceral and without peer. His visual mastery is almost enough to make up for The Impossible's conventional final hour and the empty feeling of trying to find the point of this whole exercise.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Mark Keizer
    Les Miserables
    For fans, this is exactly how the story of Jean Valjean's transformation from thief to saint should be delivered: smothered in bombast.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Silver Linings Playbook
    It's not much, but adult audiences starved for mature entertainment should be counted on to investigate this flawed, if admittedly heartfelt, work.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Mark Keizer
    Killing Them Softly
    Killing Them Softly tries hard - and succeeds - to be a film of the now with its political parallels right in front of us. Yet it's also an invisible companion to the dirty business at hand - and it is a business.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Cloud Atlas
    The movie version has the exciting and challenging parts down but the moral awakening it so strenuously wants us to experience remains beyond its reach.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Mark Keizer
    Smashed
    Alcoholic movie characters run the gamut from lovable millionaire (Arthur) to Skid Row bum (Henry Chinaski from Barfly) to all-out, suicidal depressive (Ben from Leaving Las Vegas). As written and performed, Winstead's Kate triangulates between all these approaches and finds a sincerity that plays to the intellect, not to the rafters.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    The Imposter
    A true crime tale with added layers of intrigue and atmosphere.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Neil Young Journeys
    Fans of the 66-year-old guitar god (which is to say the only people who'll see this homespun gem) will revel in Young's winsome cruise down Memory Lane.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Mark Keizer
    Undefeated
    It's a stirring mix of sports and human drama that exudes an almost earthy sense of genuineness.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Chico & Rita
    The blistering tunes and unique animation compensate for the rather unconvincing central love story that works best as a Forrest Gump-ian device to highlight some legendary real-life musicians.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Mark Keizer
    In Darkness
    In Darkness takes its place among the many great European films to tackle the subject. Plenty of quality-seeking adult moviegoers will be lured to the arthouse and thoroughly moved.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Mark Keizer
    Autoerotic
    The movie is a bit of a departure for the mumblecore pioneer, one that does not play to his strengths.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 20 Mark Keizer
    The Undefeated
    The Undefeated says less about Sarah Palin than about the political and cultural environment that made her big screen beatification possible.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    The Perfect Host
    Pierce delivers everything the role requires except serious menace, while the less-seasoned Crawford improves as his handsome face bares more of the evening's scars.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Mark Keizer
    Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
    More than just a jocular account of a musical comedy revue, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is a snapshot of a unique man's psyche at a very peculiar moment.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Make Believe
    Watching even the most tossed-off gag is worth whatever shortcomings Make Believe has, including its lack of real drama.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    The People vs. George Lucas
    Viewers will find its emotional arc obvious and familiar, although the summoning of those emotions is where the movie derives its power.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Dumbstruck
    The resulting distillation is brisk, light and engaging with none of the cheap shots that usually accompany any discussion of ventriloquism. If anything, Goffman is too gentle, refusing to pursue his charges into their darker corners.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 20 Mark Keizer
    Cat Run
    Inside the dreadful action comedy Cat Run, there are about three terrible action comedies struggling to get out.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Rubber
    Where Rubber veers off the road is that for all its giggly moments and meta-whatever, it's never quite funny enough or scary enough.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Super
    This depraved charmer offers enough to admire and a specialized hipster crowd will enjoy it, if to a mutedly positive effect.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Cracks
    Scott excels in maintaining a low, persistent hum of eroticism whose purpose is not titillation or camp.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    Elektra Luxx
    A charmingly hardened Carla Gugino reprises her role as the titular porn star, still pregnant and now coping with retirement.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    Take Me Home Tonight
    It's only sporadically amusing and it's certainly not original.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Lemmy
    For the most part, Olliver and Orshoski are smart enough to allow Lemmy's unique personality to come to them, as opposed to pushing a case for it.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    Brotherhood
    Brotherhood moves fast, but it can't outrun its superficiality.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Zero Bridge
    Having spent multiple summers in Kashmir as a child, he (Tapa) knows what the average Kashmiri wants and the difficulties they encounter trying to get it. It's what makes Zero Bridge a winning example of modesty in front of the camera and intelligence behind it.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    The Other Woman
    It becomes a parade of interpersonal conflict and miserable circumstances that adds up to nothing less than angst-porn.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    The Mechanic
    The new film could have benefited from even a moment of genuine reflection. Being a mechanic seems like a thinking man's occupation. The Mechanic, though, barely has a thought in its head.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    The Dilemma
    The hijinx get deflating, yet the tension and genuine sense of investigation keep you involved.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Plastic Planet
    Boote's strong film will make you look at the floating plastic bag from American Beauty in a new, wholly suspicious way.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Mark Keizer
    The Time That Remains
    Blend of sardonic humor and bitter poetry.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    How Do You Know
    Even Reese Witherspoon, whose adorable scrunch-face projects the romantic travails of lovelorn women everywhere, looks unsure of herself.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Mark Keizer
    Meskada
    Sternfeld's depiction of small town life feels completely inauthentic at almost every level.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    The Next Three Days
    The movie was written and directed by Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Crash) and when stripped to its logline, it's pretty ridiculous.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story
    The problem is that once you get past the barriers that Jewish players dramatically overcame between the early 20th century and post World War II, the rest is precipitously less interesting.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Mark Keizer
    Eichmann
    Robert Young's Eichmann feels the burden of history so heavily that it's effectively smothered by it.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    After.Life
    Neeson’s austere, meticulous turn is the best reason to see After.Life. He’s cinema’s most soft-spoken, high-toned boogeyman since Anthony Hopkins opened his first can of fava beans.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Cyrus
    Those unfamiliar with the Duplass' previous movies won't realize what's missing; they'll just enjoy the earthy angst, edgy laughs and off-kilter casting of Jonah Hill.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Mark Keizer
    A Film Unfinished
    Just when we thought there were no new twists to the story of the Warsaw Ghetto comes this documentary: focused, sorrowful and revelatory.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    October Country
    With the nation’s unemployment rate hovering around 10% and home foreclosure numbers stubbornly high, Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s haunting documentary of multigenerational troubles is either a case of great timing or, possibly, the worst timing ever.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    Hot Tub Time Machine
    One of Hot Tub Time Machine’s only genuinely nifty moves is getting John Cusack, Dobler himself, to topline the film.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 20 Mark Keizer
    The Bounty Hunter
    If "Midnight Run" and "His Girl Friday" had an unwanted, mutant baby, it would be The Bounty Hunter, a romantic comedy where the jokes sputter and die immediately after exiting the character’s mouths.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Mark Keizer
    The Juche Idea
    In his densely constructed and pretty damn brilliant film The Juche Idea, Finn takes aim at North Korean president Kim Jong-il's theories on cinema and how its ultimate purpose is to advance political ideology and party loyalty.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Gerrymandering
    There is so much wrong with the political system at this point that gerrymandering, in which politicians shamelessly redraw electoral boundaries to rig the outcome of elections, seems almost quaint.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    Leap Year
    Nobody here brings their A-game, denying us the pleasure of what Adams and director Anand Tucker could create together.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    The Winning Season
    Sitting through The Winning Season you marvel at how it obsessively duplicates all such films that came before but still consistently thwarts your impulse to dismiss it out of hand.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    RED
    No one is expected to take any of this seriously, so Schwentke keeps things light: light on big laughs, light on unique action set pieces and light on any sense that these game but retired spies are too old for this crap.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Rachel
    It's a well structured, sometimes riveting piece of information gathering that proves once again that Corrie's death was unnecessary and that closure has remained intriguingly, maddeningly, sadly elusive.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 20 Mark Keizer
    Burzynski
    Burzynski may have credibility in the eyes of some, but the movie about him has no credibility, so no one will be receptive to its message.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Mark Keizer
    Jonah Hex
    Conceptualized and re-conceptualized, written and re-written, shot and re-shot, cut and re-cut, the final product is the world's longest short film.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    South of the Border
    Stone embarrasses himself by backing the wrong horse and then making a weak case for him.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Valentine's Day
    A classic case of being too much of a not-very-good thing.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger
    Appearances by Toni Collette and Whale Rider’s Keisha Castle-Hughes should draw a few curious parents to what is, most of the time, a quirky and quite enjoyable coming of age saga.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Mark Keizer
    Princess Kaiulani
    So it's apropos that Forby's biggest misstep is his thin and careful script that can't carry us away on the same winds of fate that would put a sovereign republic's future in the hands of such a young woman.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Mark Keizer
    The Extra Man
    The original Jonathan Ames novel from 1998 is a rich, funny and unusual work. The movie opts for the funny and unusual, leaving us with characters ill-equipped to rise above their shtick or engage our sympathy.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
    Hugh Hefner has earned the gift of a fawning, non-confrontational greatest hits package and that's exactly what he's received, even if it's not what we necessarily wanted. As such, this will only preach to the converted (and maybe the perverted) and is best suited to DVD or cable.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Winnebago Man
    The movie is really best enjoyed as a fun little addendum to a profanity-laden chapter in New Media history.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Breath Made Visible: Anna Halprin
    The film’s warmth and heart comes from introducing us to someone born to do exactly what she’s doing.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Kimjongilia
    At 74 tough and tragic minutes, though, Kimjongilia is not destined for monetary glory. The waiting arms of public television are the more likely destination.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Mark Keizer
    Eyes Wide Open
    To say the movie is understated is an understatement, yet it’s justified.
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