Michael Ordoña

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Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle
For 192 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 49% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Michael Ordoña's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 Ne Zha 2
Lowest review score: 0 Saw 3D
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 83 out of 192
  2. Mixed: 87 out of 192
  3. Negative: 22 out of 192
192 movie reviews
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    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Erupcja
    At its best, “Erupcja” feels truthful, even insightful. At its worst, it’s an off-putting selfie of the chronically self-absorbed, like a big-screen “Girls.” It does offer an interesting perspective on its case of apparent synchronicity late in the film, but leaves plenty for viewers to ponder on their own.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Die My Love
    Die My Love is not plot-driven, with events that don’t necessarily follow one another in cause and effect. Rather, it’s a slow-burn psychological drama populated by imperfect people struggling with painful realities. Instead of a dramatic arc, it’s a dramatic decline.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Lost Bus
    The narrative is hamstrung by cliché attempts to build McKay’s backstory, shamelessly changing key facts. McConaughey’s performance is just fine, as is Ferrera’s, but the personal stuff feels like a distraction.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Long Walk
    Ultimately, “The Long Walk” is a heartfelt metaphorical drama about people bonding under duress. Instead of focusing on the darker side of human nature one might expect from the average dystopian film, it finds power in small acts of connection.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Kraven the Hunter
    Kraven the Hunter will sate fans with Taylor-Johnson’s action bona fides and its fine cast. But those same fans may be less-than enthusiastic about the idea that, with no Spider-Man and no franchise to move forward, this one essentially has nowhere to go.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Joker: Folie à Deux
    It’s so detached from the supervillain narrative that it’s almost meta. But as the musical numbers become lengthy detours rather than lending further insight into Arthur, the sequel doesn’t sing as a character study. And it sure ain’t a thriller.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Killer's Game
    Don’t expect surprises or something to ideologically critique. This is kooky carnage. You came for Dave Bautista stomping a motorcycle into submission, and damn it, that’s what you’re gonna get.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom
    Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom may not be consequential in the long run, but it’s a mostly diverting, upbeat closer, one that could hint at the tone of things to come.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Candy Cane Lane
    You want to see Eddie Murphy surrounded by some Christmas-themed silliness. And on that score, it’s fine enough, but destined for regifting.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Sisu
    It may have benefited from a quickened pace, or touches of humor, or heightened stakes because — at least in this film — watching Nazis get theirs is a vein of amusement that runs dry.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Scarlet Bond
    The movie isn’t unusual-looking or surprising, but my daughter assures me fans of the show will not want to miss it. The rest of us will be immersed in warm confusion as things we just don’t understand unspool before us.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Alice, Darling
    Ultimately, it’s about the bonds of sisterhood and how those who know you best and love you most can help you heal, or at least start you on that path. Its vagueness serves almost as a Rorschach test. How effective it is as a drama may depend on your perspective.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Almond and the Seahorse
    The cast is game. Unfortunately, what should be gut punches feel like glancing blows.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Project Wolf Hunting
    No moment on this anything-but-love boat has the impact of, say, the seasickness sequence of “Triangle of Sadness,” but slaughter stans will get their butchery bellyfuls.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Breaking
    Brown-Easley’s story is interesting and the film’s acting is committed. Unfortunately, as a cinematic experience, Breaking fails to compel.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Emergency Declaration
    The performances are uniformly solid, especially by the two leads, and the generally low-key cinematic style keeps us in the pocket of the story.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    The Devil You Know
    While it does put an interesting spin on the phrase from which it takes its title, the family drama with crime elements The Devil You Know stumbles.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    A Journal for Jordan
    The picture’s too rosy to feel real. Its elements of posthumous, loving advice and inevitable tragedy make for good bones. But this portrait is too clean, too unquestioning, too accepting, to get to the marrow.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Mother/Android
    While it gets mileage out of its two fine lead performances and the story has deep emotional roots for the filmmakers, its journey fails to capture the imagination.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Mosley
    Mosley feels well-intentioned, though its lessons are unclear, especially considering its ending. And more humor and more fully developed characters could have enlivened the familiar hero’s journey template.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Encounter
    Encounter has its moments, but it suffers from multiple storytelling approaches that don’t mesh.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    A Boy Called Christmas
    Fascinatingly muddled.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Bruised
    The superb fight choreography and committed execution by the two women in the ring (real-life UFC champ Valentina Shevchenko is convincing as Jackie’s opponent), informed by Berry’s skill as an actor conveying Jackie’s desperation, make the final fight thrilling and cringe-inducing — in a good way.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Ron's Gone Wrong
    Ron’s Gone Wrong dots its primer on friendship with chase scenes and warnings about Big Tech, with only mixed success.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Needle in a Timestack
    Odom, surely one of the busiest actors working today, gives a committed performance but lacks chemistry with either of his onscreen wives. A sense of lightness, of fun, of the alchemy between two people is missing, though it would seem crucial to drive the story.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Malignant
    If you can hang with the slow gestation of the first hour or so of Malignant, the final third may grow on you.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Kate
    Kate has its charms.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Vivo
    Vivo takes off with a cute kinkajou, some good music and some interesting visuals, but ultimately doesn’t stick the landing.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    The Last Mercenary
    The plot chugs along with no surprises, but that’s beside the point. While it’s not exactly a laugh riot, the film’s humor tends to land.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)
    “All the Streets” feels niche to a fault.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
    Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins ends up having enough good-time action sequences to make it worth the popcorn money.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Running Against the Wind
    Running Against the Wind is purportedly based on real events, and it’s sloppy and sort of random enough to be true.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    The Boss Baby: Family Business
    It’s more of the same, for better or worse, but likely with enough bells and whistles — especially those new characters — to please younger fans.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Fear Street Part One: 1994
    The dialogue can be clunky and easy to guess in advance, and there’s an unfortunate reliance on jump scares. The thing to remember is this is all part of a larger story, and without spoiling anything, that story does get significantly more interesting.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Ice Road
    The film lacks slam-bang, signature action sequences that would make it more memorable.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Fathom
    Fathom presumably gets its name from both the watery depths and the attempt to understand these mysterious aquatic mammals, but it doesn’t delve deeply enough into either the science or the scientists.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
    With its human relations a bit dicey, the movie lives or dies by the cuteness of its CG animals. Fortunately, it probably will never stop hitting the cute button inside us simply to see rabbits scurry-hopping with earnest little faces. The cinematic technology’s growth is remarkable.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Dry
    Bana is, as always, a very watchable screen presence; the film is not bad. But there’s a spark missing that could make the story burn, and the film’s abrupt ending will leave viewers high and “Dry.”
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Finding You
    The scenery’s gorgeous, Redgrave and Bergin are pros, Tom Everett Scott is fittingly gross as the selfish stage dad and Goodacre has some charm. But the film forgot to graft a personality onto its protagonist and seems so determined to be PG-clean that sparks between the leads are … hard to “find.”
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Pixie
    Pixie isn’t exactly magical, but amusing enough whenever Cooke’s character casts her spell
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    A First Farewell
    A First Farewell is a gorgeously shot window into a world most of us hadn’t looked through before, but it’s worth examining the meanings of its images.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Crisis
    Whatever its goals, the filmmaking is uninspired. It’s heavily reliant on clichés, especially in its use of score, the lone-wolf cop and familiar devices to build tension.
    • 23 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Music
    While the movie is hit and miss, under the rookie’s direction, several veteran actors still turn in solid work.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    The Marksman
    The Marksman is more drama than thriller, but really more old-fashioned western than anything else — and a familiar one at that.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Beautiful Something Left Behind
    Beautiful Something Left Behind, which won the documentary award at last year’s South by Southwest Film Festival when the film was called “An Elephant in the Room,” serves as a snapshot of kids in emotional crises, but sadly, little more.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Fatale
    While Fatale isn’t special, it’s better than most specimens of the genre due to its turns (again, I recommend skipping the trailer — which also makes it look like a differently made film, one using bolder cinematic techniques) and Swank’s exploration of her character.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Ip Man: Kung Fu Master
    If it’s an Ip Man adventure you’re looking for in which he’s a full-on superhero, this one exists. Just know you’re getting the B Team.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Half Brothers
    There’s much to like about the road-trip comedy Half Brothers. It’s funny, smart, topical and even touching at times. But it’s hard to overcome the inescapable rot at its center.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Stardust
    The new David Bowie biopic Stardust could be marketed as “Bowie as you’ve never seen him,” but it feels like “Bowie as no one ever saw him.”
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Dreamland
    The new Margot Robbie vehicle Dreamland seems to be about legends, the price of escape, maybe unreliable narrators — but ends up not saying much about any of them.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Come Away
    The ending that seems meant to be wistful, even magical, reads instead as appalling, lamentable, gloomy, however you want to say “the opposite of wondrous and happy.”
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Informer
    The Informer isn’t bad. It’s just nothing special. It relies too much on familiar elements. It’s the same throbbing score, the same expected betrayals and the same smiling, sadistic bad guys.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Spell
    If scares are the movie’s raison d’etre, though, it’s hard to imagine Spell will frighten anyone but those vulnerable to a few bits of graphic gore.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Holidate
    In such troubled times, one supposes there’s comfort to be found in the lack of adventurousness of Holidate, but it’s like opening the same present again and again.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Radium Girls
    Little attention is paid to the vernacular or physicality of the period. The depths of emotions aren’t plumbed.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Honest Thief
    It’s one of those pseudo-thrillers with car chases and shootouts in which it’s hard to invest yourself because its rules seem fungible.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Meeting the Beatles in India
    There are nagging narrative gaps and some jumping around — while that’s a bit jarring, one supposes it’s apropos for the film’s handmade feel. This isn’t an official document; it’s a fan’s eyewitness account.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Faith Based
    Is Faith Based the answer to the prayers of comedy-starved movie buffs? Not entirely, but it’s no plague of locusts, either.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    A Call to Spy
    It’s refreshing to come at the spy genre from a different angle and rewarding to be introduced to these extraordinary women. Just don’t expect a pulse-pounder or even a particularly atmospheric, experiential film.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    The Eight Hundred
    The Eight Hundred fetishizes martyrdom, but for those seeking big-screen, epic violence, it’s pretty much the only game in town.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Fatima
    In a pandemic, some might call the film a beacon of hope; others might prefer science to prayer for salvation. As a piece of cinema, though, Fatima is unlikely to be canonized.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Made in Italy
    It’s full of missed opportunities and lacking in telling details.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Dads
    Nothing here is especially revealing or deep; but the doc is pleasantly positive, and it does have something to say about how the expectations for dads today are higher than ever.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Olympia
    Without a more probing look into her artistry, it’s hard to think of Olympia as a definitive Dukakis profile — though it’s certainly an unusual celebrity documentary.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Kaye Ballard - The Show Goes On
    Perhaps, despite its lack of structure, the film will inspire a new generation to investigate this funny lady who could sing the lights out.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    You Should Have Left
    Unfortunately, the movie’s thriller elements amount to pale reflections of many other works.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Aviva
    The film fails to coalesce largely because viewers are left to wonder what joins the couple in the first place.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Screened Out
    The film drifts from grown-up to kid problems with mostly anecdotal evidence but very little science to back it up. It tries to cover too much ground in 71 minutes without going deeply into any of the areas it lightly explores.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Willoughbys
    The film’s bright colors and blaring happy music may not be enough for viewers to overcome the rather unfunny themes of neglect (“Back up the abuse caboose”) routinely excused in more engaging fare.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Strike
    The handcrafted feel of the film is mainly a virtue, setting it apart from the vast majority of animated fare.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Abe
    It almost works as food porn when we spend some time in Chico’s kitchen, but we never linger long enough for the experience to marinate.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    The Main Event
    The filmmakers cast several comic performers — Adam Pally as the dad, Tichina Arnold as the grandmother, Ken Marino as the bad guy — but there aren’t really opportunities for them to shine. Arnold seems to have the most fun with it. The Main Event, sadly, never gets off the mat.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    There's Something in the Water
    What results is an emotional appeal that highlights a grave problem but doesn’t give the viewer the scientific, factual foundation to be completely convinced. The film also doesn’t offer solutions.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Inside the Rain
    One suspects Inside the Rain is a labor of love. One wishes its makers would have let us in enough to love it as well.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Dosed
    Dosed works best as a purely anecdotal, personal chronicle of a friend’s struggle with addiction therapies. It is not recommended as a substitute for scientific conclusions.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street
    Perhaps the slickly made documentary overstates the cultural impact of a little-seen and widely disliked film. However, it earns points for scraping at the surface of something rarely discussed in film fandom — homosexuality in horror.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Flood
    The film is well-intentioned and rooted in harrowing real-life stories. Unfortunately, it’s made in the style of British television, with cinematic clichés that telegraph outcomes. The heavy-handed use of music, in particular, is intrusive.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Impractical Jokers: The Movie
    The gags are often better in theory than practice.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    The Red Sea Diving Resort
    Interesting and timely, The Red Sea Diving Resort highlights the plight of refugees and casts those helping them in a heroic light, but it doesn’t quite deliver dramatically.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Ophelia
    Sometimes the cheekiness works and sometimes the empowerment theme feels forced.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Superpower Dogs
    It’s light on the science and heavy on the action.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Cliffs of Freedom
    The dialogue is often stiff, the action and plotting unlikely, making the romance hard to swallow. The appealing Uddin and Raymonde do generate enough chemistry in their fleeting time together to keep the proposition afloat.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Robin Hood
    The action is violent and improbable but not staged with particular pizazz.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Michael Ordoña
    Walkaway
    Only 97 minutes but feels much longer. It suffers from a marked lack of energy, a condition not cured by its many, many pop-music-scored montages.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Agora
    The subject is absorbing, but the lack of differentiation in dramatic levels makes the film feel longer than its 126 minutes.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Ordoña
    Hatchet II
    You don't go to this film for Sorkinesque repartee; you go for the world's longest chainsaw, or equal-opportunity genital mutilations, or very, very long bludgeonings. And here they are, in buckets.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Ordoña
    Resident Evil: Afterlife
    If you're interested in this movie, it's because you love either seeing zombies explode (check), the video games (major character included, check) or Jovovich kicking undead butt in every conceivable way (check and mate).

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