Richard Whittaker
Select another critic »For 624 reviews, this critic has graded:
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47% higher than the average critic
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5% same as the average critic
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48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.7 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Richard Whittaker's Scores
- Movies
- TV
| Average review score: | 65 | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest review score: | Blindspotting | |
| Lowest review score: | Old | |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 443 out of 624
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Mixed: 144 out of 624
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Negative: 37 out of 624
624
movie
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Richard Whittaker
There are moments in the bleak social commentary of The School Duel that make it clear that satire is dead. Or rather, that the extremity of what is happening in American culture is so grotesque that it’s almost impossible to push into the realm of absurdist commentary.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted May 7, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Léger and Robichaud’s update is mostly successful in filtering the intent of the original for modern sensibilities, not least in the plentiful sex scenes.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted May 7, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
As Bauman falls deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Bilberry Inn, McCarthy masterfully reminds us that a ghost can be real and a metaphor, as the scares demand.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 30, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
The tonal disconnect between the subtext and the delivery leaves this Animal Farm wobbling like the first time Napoleon tries to walk on two legs.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 30, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Mārama is arguably at its most effective as a political text when it isn’t trying so hard to be part of the heritage that includes Hitchcock’s Rebecca and del Toro’s Crimson Peak.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 30, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
It’s an adept translation that is in turns bloody and cruel, insightful and hilarious, and, under the plentiful gore and uproarious laughter, a surprisingly touching drama. Just one with slapstick bloodbath tendencies.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 23, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Lowery may have dealt with the uncanny in A Ghost Story, but the whole point of that film was the mundanity of the afterlife. This is a truly supernatural tale, and the storytelling transitions into his version of horror, abstract and oblique.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 23, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
It may well be that Ozon has made the best possible conventional adaptation of the book. Yet maybe it requires a more unconventional touch to truly translate Camus’ point.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 16, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
A few unforgivably heavy-handed nods to The Shining aside, [Kawamura] has created a fresh new addition to contemporary J-horror, one that deftly warps the characters around its own rules without rendering them merely props for the next shock.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 9, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Faces of Death is dull and thoughtless, its attempts to smash influencer culture into voyeurism feeling artificial.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Apr 6, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
For two filmmakers best known for their comedic scripts like the Jump Street films and The Lego Movie, they know when to pull back on the humor and instead embrace the spectacle, and find their perfect proxy in Gosling.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Mar 19, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
A testament to the adage that a good filmmaker can make anything out of nothing, Undertone should go in your playlist now.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Mar 12, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
There are flashes of greatness, especially when Gyllenhaal and cinematographer Lawrence Sher capture some of the film’s wilder set-pieces. But then the narrative messiness undercuts the beauty of those images.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Mar 4, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
It becomes a warm and insightful tribute to every kid that finds peace climbing up a tree, to every adult that realizes the value of the natural world, and to the ties that bind us to the world around us. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn what a keystone species is.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Mar 3, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
The influence of the original Mad Max is undeniable – not the crazy biker bits, but the sense of a collapsing world, of the personal impacts and damage inflicted by the end of everything.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 26, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Like its bloodline kin, it’s a perfectly scathing glance at power, money, and how the love of both can curdle the soul.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 19, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
The best moments are when Keery and Campbell get to be blue collar schlubs facing down these messy menaces. Maybe if there was more of their back-and-forth and less of Neeson and Torchia’s distant double act, or vice versa, then Cold Storage might balance between its gruesome and goofy aspects.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 12, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Onscreen, Lighton explores the imbalance between the two and gently leads the audience with sympathy and empathy to a perfect resolution that asks both to face their own dysfunction.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 12, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie may not win over many or even any new fans, but devotees of the TV show, and even diehards from the single-n Nirvana web days will relish having their favorite gentle idiots back and hearing the same joke on a bigger stage.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 12, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
For all of Elordi’s mutton-chopped brooding and Robbie’s vamping, there’s something shallow and glib about “Wuthering Heights.” Yet again, the psychosexual classic tragedy has been turned into a well-crafted mass-market potboiler.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 11, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
It’s the same thrill as the Final Destination movies, which Egerton and Hardy have both noted as an influence: watching likable protagonists try and sometimes fail to evade death.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 5, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Call it what it is: Luc Besson’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a copy of a copy.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 5, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Making a movie about how annoyed you were that your label tried to force you to make a concert movie is just 103 minutes of Charli xcx relitigating an argument she already won, just with added product placement.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Feb 5, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Its gentleness and incremental increases in weirdness are a feature, not a bug.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 29, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
The result is something that feels like an adult’s idea of a sophisticated kids’ movie, its sense of adventure and imagination overruled and undercut by its tone of mature melancholy.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 29, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Raimi plays with the audience’s loyalties, making the insufferable Brad increasingly sympathetic and Linda more unhinged and despicable by the minute. Yet ultimately Send Help devolves into two awful people being awful to each other for two hours.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 27, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
The plot and character development remains early-2000s video game level, a fact made even more disappointing because Gans added so much more to the first film.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 22, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
In Cold Light is far better constructed and executed than its generic, straight-to-video title might imply, but it’s too monotonous – in the literal meaning of the word – to reach its aspirations or to really use its cast.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 22, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Seriously, audiences do not need another constant reminder that their lives are slipping away. Just watching Mercy will have them reconsidering their priorities.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 21, 2026
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- Richard Whittaker
Bennett’s true genius is not merely in his words – although few have ever achieved his flair for simplicity and wit. It’s in his compassion.- Austin Chronicle
- Posted Jan 15, 2026
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