Mary Elizabeth Williams

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Salon
For 66 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 37% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 60% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 15 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Mary Elizabeth Williams' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 51
Highest review score: 90 The Iron Giant
Lowest review score: 0 Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 66
  2. Mixed: 29 out of 66
  3. Negative: 16 out of 66
66 movie reviews
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    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Limbo
    The first half of the film leisurely examines the deterioration and possible salvation of the soul in a once-glorious, rapidly disintegrating landscape. (His Alaska is full of closed factories, wandering tourists and strip mines.) The second half, with its contrived setup and its individual journeys of self-discovery (harvesting kelp and building fires), is artificial and sadly undermines all that's gone before.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Any Given Sunday
    Stone is an undeniably stylish director, and his talent for conveying intense emotion is well put to use here. But more often Stone's in-your-face technique is as exhausting as his steroid-enhanced players.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Take Me Home Tonight
    I don't begrudge Take Me Home Tonight or the whole "I Love the Eighties" juggernaut its fight for its right to party, but there is something touchingly off-base about it.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Water for Elephants
    You know how they say to find one thing and do one thing well? Well, Pattinson's thing is glowering. It doesn't help matters that the movie itself is so painfully mediocre.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    The Rage: Carrie 2
    The surprise of the movie is that it actually does have a talented director and star. It doesn't begin to make up for the low quality of the story or the numerous other unfortunate elements, but it does suggest little flashes of something that, with more thought, might actually have been somewhat interesting.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
    When Pegg is breaking protocols with his uniquely ballsy aplomb, dancing like a doofus or doing battle with Venetian blinds, the film almost flies.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
    The overblown and overlong version of Percy's adventures largely fails to capture the quirky allure of Riordan's books.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    The Bachelor
    The only thing more disappointing than a truly awful film is a merely weak one that has some really fun moments.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Definitely, Maybe
    May be the first midlife crisis movie for Generation X.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    The Invasion
    The problem with Hirschbiegel's ("Das Experiment," "Downfall") convoluted, car-crash-laden Invasion is that it doesn't know what symbolism it wants to grasp.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    SLC Punk!
    The movie starts out as a sweet piece of hardcore pie, full of energy and "Repo Man"-esque satire, but ultimately deteriorates into a Percodan-flavored "Afterschool Special."
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Dudley Do-Right
    Enough flickers of Jay Ward's gloriously subversive sensibility to make it watchable, but it also has enough lengthy stretches of pure triteness to make it easy to skip altogether.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    I Don't Know How She Does It
    The major drawback of I Don't Know How She Does It, however, is Parker herself. She seems pathologically drawn to characters who don't possess believable flaws or complications -- just annoying tics.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    A Christmas Carol
    The 3-D film is flat, the CGI-enhanced characters oddly waxen. In the center of the action is Jim Carrey -- or at least a dead-eyed, doll-like version of Carrey -- playing Scrooge, the ghosts, a younger version of himself, and probably a dozen other parts. As a general rule of thumb, one Jim Carrey is plenty for any movie.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Crazy in Alabama
    Disappoints with its simplistic, hollow narrative and characters.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    200 Cigarettes
    The plots vary widely in their watchability -- from mildly amusing to stupefyingly godawful.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    The Happening
    The man who showed such promise less than a decade ago has been leaving a diminishing creative footprint ever since.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    27 Dresses
    The biggest disappointment of 27 Dresses is that it inhabits a Harlequin romance New York City, one remarkably short on homosexuals and divorce.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    What Happens in Vegas
    As it is, it's too restrained, too often -- too eager to gallop toward postcard sunsets on the beach when tequila shooters and lap dances are what the moment calls for. You'd think the combination of Diaz, Kutcher and Vegas would be good for at least a little sexy, silly fun. But don't bet on it.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Baby Boy
    Singleton's words are no fitting match for his visuals, and his metaphors are so heavy-handed -- they undermine the smart subtlety of the direction.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Runaway Bride
    You would never have predicted it from the breakout success of "Pretty Woman" nearly a decade ago, but it turns out that the pairing of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts has ripened over the years into something resembling month-old brie.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Simply Irresistible
    When the enchanted crab is the most appealing character in a movie, you know you're in some serious metaphoric hot water.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Superstar
    You'd have thought, in his infinite wisdom, the Lord would at least send stinkers like this direct to video.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 30 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Stigmata
    A leaden exercise in what can go wrong when movies attempt to explore mysterious forces with dated special effects and easy symbolism...a soggy mess.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Mickey Blue Eyes
    An uninspired, recycled Mafia gags caper.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 30 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
    It's supposed to be visually exciting, but the result is more like a corpse-strewn Gap khakis ad than a triumph of technique. At least, based on the film's grainy texture and amber lighting, it's nice to know that the guy who shot every porn movie released in the '70s appears to be working again.
    • 22 Metascore
    • 20 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    The Watcher
    It stinks pretty bad, but not so bad you'd go out of your way to avoid it.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 20 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    The Women
    The whole vibe is so shrill and frantic that the truly accomplished actresses, like Bening and Bergen, are left to flounder. The less nuanced ones -- that would be you, Debra Messing -- are, to use the idiom of the movie, as pleasant to watch as a bikini wax is to feel.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 20 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    A Little Bit of Heaven
    A moment of silence, please, for Kate Hudson's career.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 20 Mary Elizabeth Williams
    Jawbreaker
    Despite all their seamed stockings and Wonder Bras, the Reagan High girls are as far removed from their sexuality as Jawbreaker is from comedy.
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