Mike Clark

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USA Today
For 1,327 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Mike Clark's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Vertigo
Lowest review score: 12 Jawbreaker
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 843 out of 1327
  2. Mixed: 296 out of 1327
  3. Negative: 188 out of 1327
1327 movie reviews
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    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    The Client
    With danger in every woods, elevator and hospital corridor, Joel Schumacher's by-rote direction will likely give audiences what they want: slick, superficial escapism with casting punch - ironically, virtues associated with the current flop I Love Trouble. To its credit, The Client moves faster and adds suspense, but ultimately seems as negligible. [20 July 1994, p.1D]
    • USA Today
    • 62 Metascore
    • 38 Mike Clark
    Dead Man
    Coy to a fault, the movie collapses under its own weight with 90 minutes to go, despite Robby Muller's impressive black-and-white photography, which puts the film on a higher artistic plane than other equally unbearable movies. [16 May 1996, Pg.06.D]
    • USA Today
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Mike Clark
    Spanking the Monkey
    Even so, the film's incest theme seems more symbolic than literal in what is, at heart, a comedy about escaping the womb; throwaway gags are wicked enough throughout to keep the taboo plot twist from knocking this hit-and-miss black comedy off the track. [26 Jul 1994 Pg. 08.D]
    • USA Today
    • 64 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    Where the Day Takes You
    Marc Rocco directs with a little more passion than one might expect from the perpetrator of 1989's dreadful Dream a Little Dream. Yet the ultimate result - respectable, but no big deal - is an odd mix of the sick and the slick. [11 Sep 1992, p.8D]
    • USA Today
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Mike Clark
    Blade II
    Snipes gives a looser, cooler performance this time around, though emotionally, it's closer to dead than undead. Blade II is for the horror faithful only; others will be grasping their crucifixes.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    The Straight Story
    The best news the G rating has had since the ratings system was instituted in 1968.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Mike Clark
    Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
    If you can't find a more scintillating brand of dirty to enjoy during your own nights (Helena or Hoboken), you're not trying very hard.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Mike Clark
    Laws of Attraction
    With tangy Fisher equaling the leads in a sometimes scene-stealing role as Moore's mom, the actors emerge unscathed. Brosnan's part, in fact, is among the actor's most convincing non-Bond characters.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Mike Clark
    U.S. Marshals
    You don't get the sense that too many enthusiasts are hanging up wanted posters for the ho-hum-ish U.S. Marshals. [6 March 1998, pg. 04.D]
    • USA Today
    • 36 Metascore
    • 38 Mike Clark
    Road House
    Ultimately, it's just too long and redundant, too violent and unpleasant, too stupid and full of itself. But otherwise, lordy. [19 May 1989, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    Enemy at the Gates
    Annaud's epic might have worked better dramatically as a smaller, more focused picture. The best scenes simply involve Law and Harris playing sneaky professional games (less cat-and-mouse than cat-and-cat) with each other.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 75 Mike Clark
    Hollywood Ending
    Woody Allen is good for his funniest screen romp in a while, thanks to a few evenly spaced standout scenes of laugh-out-loud intensity.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    Calendar Girls
    What the movie can't quite get over, no matter how hard the filmmakers try, is the story's built-in limitations.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 75 Mike Clark
    The Mothman Prophecies
    Compellingly watchable horror-spectacle.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Mike Clark
    Empire of the Sun
    A faithful, technically brilliant, but also dramatically malnourished film of J.G. Ballard's popular World War II novel. [08 Dec 1987]
    • USA Today
    • 27 Metascore
    • 50 Mike Clark
    Head Over Heels
    At least the models' avarice and teasing provide a chuckle or two, as their dates line up panting at the door. Purely by default, their contribution makes this a slightly better working-woman romance than "The Wedding Planner."
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Mike Clark
    Extreme Measures
    A ludicrous medical thriller operating on the supposition that readers and moviegoers have forgotten about "Coma". [27 Sept 1996]
    • USA Today
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    The Paper
    Ron Howard's The Paper starts out as a seductively overstuffed edition with breezy stories, a diverting layout, color-packed supplements and a strong editorial viewpoint. Eventually, it becomes more like the Jumble Puzzle on page 64G. [18 March 1994, p.4D]
    • USA Today
    • 45 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    Evita
    So fluidly visual that only a deathbed finale can flag its pace, it's the first Panavision music video to run 21/4 hours, the monotony finally sapping its staying power. [23 Dec 1996 Pg.01.D]
    • USA Today
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    Kiss of Death
    If you savor movies about sleazy plea bargains and other lawyer hardballing, Death has its moments. Otherwise the latest from director Barbet Shroder is only a movie of moments - much like his last: Single White Female. [21 Apr 1995, p.7D]
    • USA Today
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Mike Clark
    The Princess Bride
    Crystal is such a panic - and normally uptight Patinkin is so attractively relaxed as a Spanish swordsman - that Bride's charms just can't be ignored. [25 Sept 1987]
    • USA Today
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Mike Clark
    Around the World in 80 Days
    Just going through the motions here (and mild ones at that), both Chan and the movie should have stayed at home.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    The Manchurian Candidate
    A case of smart and talented people trying to jam a Cold War square into a Gulf War circle. You can feel the chafing, to say nothing of the burden this capably crafted shrug has taken on.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Mike Clark
    Good Night, and Good Luck.
    The only things missing from making this showdown worthy of a Western is Murrow's sheriff's badge, a dusty street and maybe a spittoon for McCarthy's infamous invectives.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    The New World
    Pocahontas catching us off-guard with an impromptu cartwheel isn't the knock-you-down brainstorm of Naomi Watts juggling for King Kong, but it's still deliciously inspired. Trouble is, the bit lasts two seconds, while the movie is a long "might have been" that's doomed to be buried in a flurry of strong late-year releases.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    The Princess and the Warrior
    The film has its moments as a mood piece.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    The Crying Game
    This grade-A sleeper sends you out with an unexpected smile. [25 Nov 1992]
    • USA Today
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Mike Clark
    The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge
    The movies are so much fun that even detractors of Charlton Heston (Cardinal Richelieu) and Raquel Welch (taking pratfalls as "Constance") readily admit that both carry more than their load here. [01 May 1998]
    • USA Today
    • 85 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    Hero
    A movie just good enough to keep nurturing rooting interest as you watch it.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Mike Clark
    Dead Calm
    Thanks to fuzzy motivation, snicker-bait melodramatics and craters in logic, Calm quickly disintegrates into a might-have-been. [07 Apr 1989, p.6D]
    • USA Today
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