Monica Castillo

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For 369 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 45% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Monica Castillo's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 64
Highest review score: 100 Hokum
Lowest review score: 0 The Departure
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 236 out of 369
  2. Mixed: 67 out of 369
  3. Negative: 66 out of 369
369 movie reviews
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    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Gunpowder Milkshake
    [Papushado] creates a world that’s so strange, in both a visually striking sense and one that doesn't always work, that even when a performance sputters out or a line of dialogue rings false, it doesn’t tank the movie. However, that level of spectacle through eye-catching production design and visual style means that sometimes the movie’s vivid colors and bullets outshine the star-studded cast.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Dead & Beautiful
    There are some fun ideas and moments in Dead & Beautiful, but Verbeek seems to want to avoid offending anyone with the suggestion that the rich are vampires—which is the premise his movie is built on.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Monica Castillo
    Crash Pad
    The movie’s premise isn’t as bad as the forced, unnatural dialogue. Even the reliable Ms. Applegate and Mr. Church can’t salvage the screenwriter Jeremy Catalino’s clumsy lines.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Monica Castillo
    El Chicano
    For his part, Castillo makes the best of the clunky dialogue and cliché lines, but the story never lets his acting chops shine through.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Measure for Measure
    Based on the Shakespeare play of the same name, Paul Ireland’s Measure for Measure is filled with drama, although perhaps not the kind you’d expect from the Bard. No, this is a modern-day adaptation—one grappling with xenophobia, drug addiction, and gun violence. There are no period costumes here, but there’s a stone-faced Hugo Weaving to make up for it.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Monica Castillo
    The Good Catholic
    Fortunately, Mr. Spicer’s earnest performance bolsters many of the weaker spots in Mr. Shoulberg’s script.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Resort to Love
    At least the movie features a few solid performances to make it a worthwhile diversion for some viewers. Others less inclined to easily resolved romances may want to book some other excursion.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Lonely Planet
    So, if the couple at the center of this romantic comedy lacks chemistry, can you at least enjoy the scenery or the retreat’s resort? Unfortunately, this is not “White Lotus.”
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Brave New Jersey
    The film’s narrative simplicity can be charming or frustrating, depending on your feelings about awkward dialogue and overreacting actors.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Seance
    With leaden performances and puzzling camerawork, it’s hard to feel in tune with the movie’s frights outside of the occasional jump scare.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Foe
    Foe stumbles rather spectacularly by leaning more on melodrama than logic and choosing cliche over originality. Aside from rehashing tropes and offering some laughably bad moments, the film accomplishes little.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Ricky Stanicky
    Ricky Stanicky feels like a throwback, and not in a nostalgic fun way either. It’s more like a rehash of tired bits and jokes with nothing particularly innovative or clever to say.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Hunter Killer
    It’s also an odd time to release a movie that embraces collaborating with the Russians and painting bad and good guys with such broad strokes. This puts Hunter Killer in murky geopolitical waters I don’t think it knows how to navigate. Neither the movie or Butler is nearly entertaining enough to distract us.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    No One Gets Out Alive
    No One Gets Out Alive builds its suspense through scares both real and supernatural. While I’m less satisfied with its ultimate execution, Jon Croker and Fernanda Coppel's script has a lot going in its favor.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Monica Castillo
    Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
    Tragically, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil does not give Jolie and Pfeiffer nearly enough time to face off against each other.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Monica Castillo
    Glass
    Performances aside, Glass is a pretty mixed bag of exposition-filled dull moments and pedantic dialogue.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Swiped
    At a time when it seems like women’s representation seems to be regressing, the intention of the film feels more timely now than when the film ends in 2019, before the pandemic, and the fondness for dating apps starts to wear off. But it was the user experience of the film—where its simplistic narrative design leaves no surprises and plenty of shallow characters—that felt unsatisfying.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Monica Castillo
    Papi Chulo
    Well-intentioned but at times insensitive, Papi Chulo is a complicated movie. It wants so badly to do the right thing when the situation is all wrong.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Love Hard
    Some moments are sweeter than others, but overall, this cookie cutter rom-com has nothing more or less than what its subgenre demands.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Back Roads
    Not all tearful screaming sessions translate well from the page to the screen, and this is an excruciating example of overkill.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Sight
    On reflection, “Sight” is a beat-by-beat wholesome biopic built to leave its audience feeling good and inspired by its sermon.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    If Not Now, When?
    Between its amateurish direction, pedestrian cinematography, and overly plotted script, the narrative and visuals don’t coalesce into a story that feels restorative, cathartic, or even joyful.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 33 Monica Castillo
    Desert Warrior
    The movie’s basic appeal––that of rebels rising up against evil empires––still works to some extent, but Desert Warrior does little to make it memorable beyond its historic production.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    In the Lost Lands
    Ultimately, the threadbare quality of Constantin Werner’s screenplay cannot be smoothed over with gobs of CGI effects (impressive as some of these sequences look) and the star power of Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Love Wedding Repeat
    Our characters here are not so much stuck in a time loop, as they are in a very lazy movie filled with cliches and middle school-level humor, and which starts over half-way through the events for no reason. The joke is on anyone who mistakes this movie for entertainment.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Protector
    Dragged down by over-explanatory dialogue and tired narrative tropes, Protector brings nothing new to the table–except maybe for a confounding 11th hour twist that I won’t spoil that defies reasoning and frankly, good taste. If anyone needs rescuing, it’s Jovovich from this movie.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Stage Mother
    A sweet but ineffective comedy that cashes in on drag culture’s new mainstream fame. While the movie brings up a handful of important topics, the way it handles issues like drug addiction and physical abuse ultimately feel superficial and hollow. Fortunately, a few sparkling performances salvage the show from becoming too maudlin.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    The Curse of La Llorona
    It’s frustratingly simple, the dialogue over-explains everything and while there are a few solid moments of suspense, there’s too much dead air in-between.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    House Party
    While this remix of "House Party" may leave some nostalgic for the original, it smartly doesn't try to copy the first film. However, it does stay true to the first version's celebration of friendship.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Miss Bala
    The Mexican film now has a Hollywood remake, one that adds new elements to the story but is less coherent in its message.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    A Nice Girl Like You
    If A Nice Girl Like You would have stayed the course of the book it’s based on, Ayn Carrillo-Gailey’s 2007 memoir Pornology, it might have been an interesting enough premise. Instead, Andrea Marcellus’ screen adaptation whitewashes the main character and moves the narrative into a more conventional territory, one centered on love over lust, tame over the risque.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Ad Vitam
    Ad Vitam, which in Latin means “for life,” is at times brisk but narratively unclear, delivers its share of action, but not the characters to keep you emotionally invested.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Eat Wheaties!
    The unappealingly named comedy Eat Wheaties! is a tedious exercise in patience that, like a bowl of soggy cereal, I would not recommend to anyone.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    Jexi
    Although the title is confounding and perhaps the movie’s worst misstep, it’s Byrne’s digitized and stilted delivery that earns the biggest laughs.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    The Kissing Booth 2
    You can soak in the movie’s basic premise and overacting just as long as you know this pool’s shallow.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Monica Castillo
    Three Christs
    The cast can’t cure all the movie’s problems, from its abrupt ending to a random acid-test scene, but it’s not without its curious appeal as a star-studded failed “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” experiment.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 42 Monica Castillo
    Michael
    Michael is an attempt to remind audiences why so many fans fell in love with him in the first place, but it doubles as a pretty clear bit of hagiography.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    My Oxford Year
    The couple doesn’t quite light up the screen with their chemistry, and the writing feels much too basic, given these are meant to be characters in a literature degree program. Thankfully, there are moments of levity, a number of cross-cultural jokes, and supporting characters to lighten the mood.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Men in Black: International
    Many fans wished to see these two actors trade witty barbs once again, but the pair’s new movie, Men in Black: International, strips away just about everything fun from the duo except their on-screen presence.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Echo Boomers
    As with the many trend pieces complaining about millennials spending too much money on avocado toast over home mortgages, Echo Boomers gets a lot wrong about the generation it wants to discuss. Maybe the filmmakers should have listened more.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 60 Monica Castillo
    Poms
    Poms is strongest when basking in the infectious enthusiasm of its cast. Keaton and Weaver could have easily phoned in their performances, but they do look like they’re having fun together with their crew of Golden Girls.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Monica Castillo
    The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature
    The jokes are thin, the computer animation is wanting and the inane plot is a series of set pieces strung together.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Lucy in the Sky
    What Hawley has delivered is a garden variety bad movie, proving the TV wunderkind of “Fargo” and “Legion” was not quite ready for the big screen.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    The Kissing Booth 3
    To Marcello and and co-writer Jay S. Arnold’s credit, there are a handful of surprises that defy some of the more expected youthful rom com tropes. But the rest is a lot of the same teenage romantic tribulations we’ve seen before.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    Awake
    Awake has just enough scares and strangeness, plus a sense of dread and paranoia, to make its horror creepy and enjoyable. It’s not a flawless thriller, but enough different elements click into place, like Rodriguez and Greenblatt’s performances.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Stardust
    The lack of a solid narrative means Stardust cannot compensate for the production’s modest budget, which lacks a noticeable amount of Bowie songs and includes many scenes filmed on the cheap.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    The Blazing World
    The Blazing World falls short narratively and visually, not leaning hard enough into its stylistic possibilities to leave an impression past its opening credits. It’s fantasy for the sake of therapy, and there’s no romance or joy here in imagining a better realm.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Regretting You
    Josh Boone’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s “Regretting You” is a romantic drama with big emotions and plenty of both romance and drama. But too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, and in the case of “Regretting You,” the narrative buckles under the number of overblown emotional scenes and the commercial interruptions for product placements.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    The Host
    For a tale of mystery and intrigue, The Host provided neither.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Monica Castillo
    The Kindness of Strangers
    Despite its feel-good title, The Kindness of Strangers is a rather bleak movie, one so tied to the miseries of its characters that it’s difficult to see the point of it at all.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Corporate Animals
    Imagine “Office Space” with forgettable characters and nothing to say about this next bleak phase of the business world.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Half Brothers
    Because of the movie’s uneven story and characters, it’s a bumpy ride no matter which route you take.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    The Death and Life of John F. Donovan
    The Death & Life of John F. Donovan is rife with melodramatic moments and insufferable characters.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 12 Monica Castillo
    Fool's Paradise
    Overblown caricatures and stale jokes about “don’t you know who I am?!” and going to see his wife’s shaman feel about as empty as a finished cup of coffee, and unfortunately, this movie has nothing else to offer for a refill.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Dear David
    Dear David is branded content—uninspired and hollow to a fault—and perhaps that’s even more disturbing than a five-year-old internet ghost story.
    • 21 Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Life Itself
    Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself packs in enough narrative twists and turns to leave viewers with a sense of emotional whiplash. One tragedy bleeds into another so often that the events begin to blur.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    On a Wing and a Prayer
    The best preachers always know how to tell a story and tie it back to a Biblical lesson, but director Sean McNamara has less than a youth pastor’s grasp on his main character’s crisis of faith.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 0 Monica Castillo
    City of Dreams
    It is another advocacy film without answers, pretending that the mere act of bringing awareness to a problem solves it.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Monica Castillo
    Tango Negro: The African Roots of Tango
    The musical interludes of rarely heard recordings are an impressive find, but the movie's messy approach to telling tango's hidden history seems at odds with itself.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Monica Castillo
    Breaking Through
    For a movie all about passion and the need to express yourself artistically, it is the most halfhearted "you got served" to hit theaters this year.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Monica Castillo
    The Martial Arts Kid
    The film is rife with homages to the "bullied kid learns martial arts" classic, The Karate Kid, but never quite finds its own footing in the ring. The editing is choppy and the dialogue sophomoric, however hard the actors try to deliver it dramatically.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Monica Castillo
    Mi America
    Fontaine, also the writer and director here, aims high and crashes spectacularly, unable to keep the Jenga tower of a story together — or from being uninteresting.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Monica Castillo
    Sex, Death and Bowling
    The movie's flair for soap-opera-style pile-on becomes emotionally draining rather than moving.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Monica Castillo
    Havana Motor Club
    The camera looks lovingly at the Fifties American muscle cars while also capturing the enthusiasm and hope in these men's stories.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Monica Castillo
    Darkness Rising
    There are almost too many references to other movies for this one to become its own monster.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Monica Castillo
    Tales of an Immoral Couple
    A sweet and affecting story, one that forgoes the awkward moments of teenage romance and offers the possibility of reliving a bit of our youthful amor — if just for the film’s 90-minute running time.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Monica Castillo
    Do It Like An Hombre
    The movie flouts its intolerance in an attempt at provocative humor. Unless you laugh at fossils, I have no idea why you should buy a ticket to gawk at this dinosaur.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Monica Castillo
    Different Flowers
    Several scenes have a warm, rosy tinge to them, even during the sisters’ meanest blowups, as if to assure the audience that, for these two, there will always be a reconciliation.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 90 Monica Castillo
    Santa & Andrés
    Santa & Andrés begins as a film about separation and pain, but becomes a movie about reconciliation and healing.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Monica Castillo
    Rosa Chumbe
    The women’s missteps seem to come straight out of a cautionary morality play. And the movie’s dismal outlook even extends to the dimly-lit cinematography. It doesn’t need a miracle to see the light. It needs a full pardon.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 65 Monica Castillo
    That Way Madness Lies...
    In its modest efforts, That Way Madness Lies embraces a kind of sensitive nuance you don’t always see in depictions of mental illness in the movies.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    Juanita
    It would have been interesting to see a better version of a working class “Eat Pray Love” or “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” that swaps thrilling destinations outside the U.S. for a bus ticket somewhere in the States to reconnect with who you are. Juanita feels like an approximation of this experience.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Monica Castillo
    Las Pildoras De Mi Novio
    The story, the jokes, even Hank’s imaginary pill-shaped friends, and an expensive trip to the curador/local shaman are cheap tricks for a hollow laugh. Better to savor the few carefree moments of Camil’s stellar performance and the poignant lessons to learn about love, health and communication.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Monica Castillo
    En Brazos de un Asesino
    The movie’s few bright spots feel unintentional, like mistakes left in because no one else noticed the absurdity of some scenes or the comic potential in others.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 0 Monica Castillo
    The Departure
    In the case of Merland Hoxha’s The Departure, my first note was “why does this movie exist?” An hour and change later when the credits rolled, I still couldn’t answer my own question. My best guess to explain this vile movie is that it’s based on some nasty relationship drama, and we’re all invited to watch Hoxha work his way through some still-lingering resentment.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    Trust
    Although Trust gets off to a shaky start, once the players are introduced and the flirty game’s afoot, it’s a mostly fun ride.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    Carnaval
    Carnaval is like Girls Trip by way of Brazil, but the acting and many of the comedy’s punchlines are fairly over-exaggerated. The four leads are just a step above stock characters.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 38 Monica Castillo
    The Unheard
    The Unheard has its shining moments, but they are not enough to cover for some duller missteps. Although the premise is strong, its execution is less-than-convincing.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 75 Monica Castillo
    The Secret Art of Human Flight
    Written by Jesse Orenshein, the script for “The Secret Art of Human Flight” is just as inventive as it is emotional.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Til Death Do Us Part
    Although it resembles the far sleekier “Ready or Not,” Timothy Woodward Jr.'s actioner Til Death Do Us Part never gets near that level of competence. Instead, screenwriters Chad Law and Shane Dax Taylor keep their audience in the dark, any semblance of world-building or storytelling be damned.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Dashing Through the Snow
    Consider Dashing Through the Snow more of a disappointing stocking stuffer than an exciting present under the tree.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    Yellow Door: '90s Lo-fi Film Club
    Though the story that Lee reconstructs in Yellow Door: '90s Lo-fi Film Club is fascinating, it's given a limited visual presentation here, often using talking head-style interviews of the various members of the group.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    You Can't Stay Here
    Verow, who wrote the script with his writing partner James Derek Dwyer, incorporates many familiar queer narratives and supernatural elements for a story with many twists and turns, some of which work better than others.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 75 Monica Castillo
    Kidnapping Inc.
    Even if it falls short in some regards, “Kidnapping Inc.” is a splashy debut that commands your attention from start to finish.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 0 Monica Castillo
    Running on Empty
    There’s almost nothing to savor from this movie past its initial premise, and, like a funeral that drags on in the summer heat, takes far too long to get to its inevitable conclusion.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    The Love Scam
    While “The Love Scam” isn’t breaking new rom-com ground, it sufficiently checks the expected boxes and features a formidable romantic pair with Folletto and Adriani.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    Lucca's World
    Visually, Chenillo’s film doesn’t stand out, but it’s a pleasant enough story with a hopeful tone, celebrating each of Lucca’s victories, from holding on to the sides of the tub with both hands to kicking a ball for the first time to taking his first steps.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Clika
    Unlike previous iterations of music stars struggling to make it to the spotlight, “Clika” lacks the electricity and the excitement of watching a performer bring the house down.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 25 Monica Castillo
    Pretty Thing
    We could all use a little distraction these days, and there are worse ways to spend the time than in the company of an engrossing erotic thriller. Unfortunately, “Pretty Thing” isn’t one of them. Between stilted conversations, murky cinematography, and the story’s intimate partner violence, the film is distracting in an unpleasant way.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    What We Hide
    As a whole, “What We Hide” has the feeling of an old after-school special, a melodramatic lesson about a topical issue.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 63 Monica Castillo
    Sweetness
    The coming-of-age story in “Sweetness” is less sugar than spice and very little nice.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Monica Castillo
    I Was a Stranger
    Andersen’s film, in its attempt to present various perspectives in this story, shifts the viewer’s attention from one character to another, diluting its emotional impact.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 75 Monica Castillo
    Spacewoman
    Like last year’s crowd-pleasing documentary, “Sally,” “Spacewoman” is a heartwarming and inspiring story of a woman defying the odds, sexism, and workplace danger to make history.
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