Mary Pols

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For 226 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Mary Pols' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Inside Out
Lowest review score: 0 Jack and Jill
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 112 out of 226
  2. Mixed: 94 out of 226
  3. Negative: 20 out of 226
226 movie reviews
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    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    Jobs
    Kutcher, whose acting chops haven’t been tested in all those pretty-boy lead roles, was a welcome surprise. His movie-star glow distracts, but there is a strong physical resemblance. Moreover, he’s got many of Jobs’ mannerisms down cold, from that T Rex–like walk to the fingers that fan the air and the yoga-style postures left over from his bohemian youth. It’s a good impression, but Jobs itself is all too impressionistic.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    2 Guns
    They’re cute together, these two big stars, but the film around them, a sort of Tarantino lite, is desperately empty.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Mary Pols
    42
    Boseman is not a hugely close physical match to Robinson, except for perhaps in the power he conveys, but he’s a great choice to play the ball player, unfamiliar enough, despite a decade of small credits here and there, to feel like an athlete, not a movie star playing one.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    Admission
    While Admission remains the story of a woman who comes to question her past choices and jeopardize her career, the movie version is lighter, fluffier and dramatically inert.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    Ginger & Rosa
    Ginger & Rosa never matches the freshness of its young star.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    Jack the Giant Slayer
    The technology is undeniably there to make a credible beanstalk fly into the heavens, and giants that are utterly grotesque and vividly threatening. But how about something we can take our kids too? Doesn’t anyone want them to be there?
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    Safe Haven
    The man (Sparks) is a cultural magpie, capable of borrowing from a 1991 Julia Roberts flick and M. Night Shyamalan in one fell swoop. He’ll never get an award for originality, but when it comes to rehashing formula and pleasing his audience, the man is a master.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III
    All this eye candy is ultimately only about as engaging as watching kids at play, which is what Sheen and Schwartzman seem to be doing. I can’t argue that this isn’t an accurate glimpse inside some man’s mind — perhaps Austin Powers?
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    Mama
    Mama is clumsily written and choppily edited, but Chastain doesn't have a bad scene in it, and you can see why she chose to be in this supernatural ghost story.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    Parental Guidance
    I can't deny I did feel fonder of my own family afterward, mostly because I know none of them would ever make me sit through Parental Guidance.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    This Is 40
    As the movie goes on, the laughs are fewer and farther between, and for the last 30 minutes, not only did I not laugh, I wanted it to end so I could get back to my own boring but less precious life.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Mary Pols
    The Guilt Trip
    The Guilt Trip works because we all know and like a Joyce Brewster (or dozens of them).
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    The Fitzgerald Family Christmas
    Suspense isn't Burns' thing though, and it may be foolish to even ask for it this far into his career. Burns has made it crystal clear what his style is: lots of chatty, mostly amiable folks, working out their not so troubling differences in the greater New York metropolitan area.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    Rise of the Guardians
    Like most children's movies, Rise of the Guardians mimics the patterns of adult entertainment. Where is the magic in that?
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    Alex Cross
    Where Freeman was warm but enigmatic, Perry is warm but empty.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    Sinister
    The movie is full of feints, shocks and scenes of particularly perverse violence, but nothing about it is fresh enough to haunt you in the night. It's predictable.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Mary Pols
    The Oranges
    Light as a feather, the movie is at times a modest pleasure, but inconsequential.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    Won't Back Down
    If "Waiting for Superman" was intended to make audiences think, Won't Back Down is supposed to make them feel. It made me feel more annoyed than outraged.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    Hotel Transylvania
    Hotel Transylvania isn't a complete stinker. Sandler, speaking in a pitch close to his Opera Man routine from his days on Saturday Night Live, is less obnoxious than usual. The visuals are consistently enticing - the castle/hotel is artfully rendered...And there are some bright and funny lines.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    Liberal Arts
    In its lesser moments, of which there are more, Liberal Arts calls to mind more the spirit of an alumni magazine, so bathed in nostalgia for academia that you expect autumn leaves to flutter down to the theater floor.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    Bachelorette
    Apparently Bachelorette has been divisive, with audiences either falling hard for it or walking away disgusted. I'd have fallen harder for it if I'd walked away more disgusted.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    The Words
    For a tale of thieving, The Words plods along. Not that a literary heist is as exciting as a bank robbery, but there's a remarkable lack of tension in this story.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Mary Pols
    Sparkle
    Sparkle, while occasionally silly in a way that made a preview audience titter, is decent entertainment.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    The Odd Life of Timothy Green
    Whatever director Peter Hedges' intent, the movie itself, a sentimental blend of magical realism and saccharine emotions, is oddly false. It made me want to go on a sugar cleanse.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    The Campaign
    Four minutes of Bush on SNL is just right, but 85-minutes of Cam Brady feels like a lot, even with a strong supporting cast that includes Jason Sudeikis as Cam's campaign manager and Katherine LaNasa as Cam's picture-perfect, but mean-as-nails wife.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    2 Days in New York
    This cutesy film is overwhelmed by a sense of forced farce.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    The Queen of Versailles
    The steady wink wink of Queen of Versailles is wearing. I'd say Greenfield is exploiting a narcissist's willingness to talk endlessly about herself, but I think it just as likely that Jackie is exploiting Greenfield's willingness to listen. And to keep that wonderful mechanical eye focused on her.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Mary Pols
    Ice Age: Continental Drift
    The frenetic pace masks an emptiness; this Ice Age is just a collection of slapstick moments and fisticuffs.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Mary Pols
    People Like Us
    The glossily photographed family drama People Like Us is not without appeal, but it has a major construction flaw. It's dramatic arc is predicated on the problem of accidental incestuous attraction. Egads.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Mary Pols
    To Rome with Love
    Other than Baldwin, Allen and Eisenberg - who is delightful - few of the performances are memorable. Page is miscast as a femme fatale, but adroit with Allen's lines, but the other women, Cruz, Pill and Gerwig hardly register.
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