Martin Tsai

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Collider, Los Angeles Times, The A.V. Club, TheWrap
For 318 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 35% higher than the average critic
  • 12% same as the average critic
  • 53% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 16 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Martin Tsai's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 50
Highest review score: 100 The Emperor's New Clothes
Lowest review score: 0 Christmas Eve
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 91 out of 318
  2. Mixed: 131 out of 318
  3. Negative: 96 out of 318
318 movie reviews
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    • 79 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Babygirl
    At a different time, I might have been more inclined to entertain Reijn's proposition seriously. But it's just her luck that the great Catherine Breillat, who has devoted her illustrious career to investigating these taboos, dropped a far superior film on the same subject matter, Last Summer, just a few months prior, beating Reijn to the finish line.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 0 Martin Tsai
    Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank
    Reckless cultural insensitivities aside, Stone and Hopper’s writing is simply not smart or funny. Poop and fart jokes comprise the core of their repertoire, and if you’re curious how reliant the film is on this material, Paramount is literally handing out whoopee cushions to promote the film.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Ktown Cowboys
    The film persistently misses the mark as a raunchy comedy amid all the side commentaries and Park's earnest tone. Yet it's equally clumsy at making sense of its portrayals of the indignities that Asian Americans routinely endure.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 20 Martin Tsai
    Cabin Fever
    It doesn't help that what passes for acting here seems more like a table read.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 20 Martin Tsai
    Monday at 11:01 A.M.
    Agron's screenplay and Harvey Lowry's direction seem more concerned with scattering bread crumbs than fashioning credible characters and an engaging story.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    The Boy
    If only writer Stacey Menear and director William Brent Bell took the very real horrors of domestic abuse as seriously as they do the virtual horror of paranormal activity.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 0 Martin Tsai
    Anger of the Dead
    Coming off like a hodgepodge of rejected spec scripts for "The Walking Dead," Anger of the Dead reveals particularly misogynistic and misanthropic filmmaking.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    We Are Many
    Since the rally ultimately proved ineffectual, the film could at the least serve as a sobering postmortem on where it fell short. But filmmaker Amir Amirani instead gives protesters a figurative pat on the back by insinuating that they helped inspire the Egyptian revolution some eight years later.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Close Range
    There's no characterization to the cartel members beyond freeze-frame title cards; they are interchangeable and expendable.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Bleeding Heart
    Writer-director Diane Bell suggests that these women are so steeped in low self-esteem and codependency that they would not be able to leave their men if they didn't have each other.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 0 Martin Tsai
    Christmas Eve
    Who knew a movie seemingly meant to spread holiday cheer could be so off-putting in an almost sadistic way?
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Joe's War
    The film, unfortunately, treats the important and complex subject of post-traumatic stress disorder in an oversimplified and reductive way.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Martin Tsai
    Evidence of Harm
    Since his due-diligence efforts were rebuffed by the American Dental Assn. and the Food and Drug Administration in their declining of interview requests, director Randall Moore doubles down on the already ex parte narrative with heavy-handed editorializing.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Martin Tsai
    Eating Happiness
    It's tough to stomach in more ways than one.... A capricious, counterintuitive narrative also renders the film nearly unwatchable.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 10 Martin Tsai
    At Granny's House
    Seemingly meant for the stage, the film feels unnaturally theatrical with characters stiltedly reciting each line of dialogue even when supposedly conversing. But with Mahoney's pedestrian, shot-reverse-shot direction, these scenes play out like situational skits from an instructional video made for ESL students.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 10 Martin Tsai
    Medusa
    The pedestrian writing and acting prove even more cringe-worthy and dreadful than the special effects.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Western Religion
    A one-dimensional movie painted in painfully broad strokes and whizzing, hurry-scurry action sequences.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Martin Tsai
    Shark Lake
    Shark Lake lacks bite. Its audience doesn't even get to revel in blood and guts; the whole thing seems like it was edited for broadcast.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Godspeed: The Story of Page Jones
    The film never gives a real sense of the daily travails associated with traumatic brain injury.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Olvidados (Forgotten)
    By cramming in as many tangents as imaginable, Olvidados ultimately loses sight of what the story is even about.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    The Man Who Saved the World
    The film is a disingenuous, thoroughly dramatized reenactment at best and a reality show at worst.
    • 23 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Pay the Ghost
    Tidbits that would make the film interesting have been squandered. Instead, we get the standard-issue haunted-house fodder. The ghosts manifest in so many different ways that it seems like the movie is grasping for straws.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    The Green Inferno
    The film is measured and executed effectively to satiate horror fans' bloodlust, yet its underlying messages are just so repugnant.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Uncle John
    Perhaps the vapid existence of millennials is precisely the point that co-writers Erik Crary and Steven Piet (who also directs) are driving at, but the film itself proves inarticulate and unsubstantial.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    The Martial Arts Kid
    The film has the vibe of something you might see on Nickelodeon or ABC Family but with a lower budget.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Martin Tsai
    Listening
    To call it amateurish would be kind.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    Contracted: Phase II
    Novice screenwriter Craig Walendziak has followed England's template, charting the daily worsening of the symptoms. But he doesn't get that the 2013 "Contracted" was special because it was much more than a zombie flick.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    My Voice, My Life
    The film might have gained some heft had director Ruby Yang let the transformations unfold before our eyes instead of force-feeding us testimonials.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Martin Tsai
    Windsor Drive
    There isn't a whole lot to the script, and the exasperating direction by Natalie Bible only makes the film look like an extended trailer that teases but never delivers.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Martin Tsai
    When Bette Met Mae
    The performances are cringe-worthy, the appeal of the material marginal.
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