Russ Fischer

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The Playlist, TheWrap
For 42 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 0% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Russ Fischer's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 91 Mandy
Lowest review score: 25 Point Break
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 21 out of 42
  3. Negative: 4 out of 42
42 movie reviews
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    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Russ Fischer
    Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker
    The Rise of Skywalker; is as much metafiction as Johnson’s film was. Rather than asking questions about what we really want from a series like “Star Wars,” and whether we’re ready to allow our childhood fictions to grow with us, J.J. Abrams and crew decide to lean on the emotional warmth of reunions, friendships, redemptions, and goodbyes. There is some heartfelt value here, or at least, some of it does admittedly produce some anthemic feels, but it doesn’t hold much weight.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 42 Russ Fischer
    Terminator: Dark Fate
    Hamilton, Reyes, and Davis do everything possible to inject emotional energy into this slashing, crashing sequel, but in the end, even their efforts are ground up by the action movie machine.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Russ Fischer
    Mechanic: Resurrection
    Even flashy, grumpy Jones can’t act like a defibrillator powerful enough to crank this generic movie into competition for Statham’s better solo outings.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Russ Fischer
    Five Nights in Maine
    Restraint is a good impulse when dealing with such a simple story of grief, and Curran’s approach does lead to good incidental visions of each character’s devastated state. Yet Five Nights in Maine is as frustrating as it is mannered; we never see these characters truly engaging the pain they clearly feel.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Russ Fischer
    The Conjuring 2
    As it fritters away character work and ideas about faith and devotion, this is a film clever enough to scare us but not smart enough to accomplish anything more.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Russ Fischer
    Warcraft
    Warcraft may provide grand, thunderous spectacle as it transforms human actors into hulking Orcs, but when trying to perform the alchemy of transmuting genre archetypes into characters with soul, the magic fizzles out.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 58 Russ Fischer
    Money Monster
    The film is never as savage as the first-act anarchy suggests it might be, and its best ideas are subsumed into familiar thriller concepts. Good craftsmanship elevates the result above workaday thriller territory, but ultimately Money Monster never rages in the “mad as hell” mode that’s always kept just out of reach
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Russ Fischer
    X-Men: Apocalypse
    Apocalypse feels like a cog in Fox’s perpetual-motion blockbuster machine, paying lip service to the story’s allegorical potential as it grinds our interest to dust.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 42 Russ Fischer
    Elvis & Nixon
    The actors test one another like boxers perpetually about to throw the first punch, but all the buildup around their encounter is flabby and forgettable.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 42 Russ Fischer
    Hardcore Henry
    Sure, there's a bit of spectacle to the film's utterly ridiculous violence. Even that dulls, however, without character or stakes to inject urgency into the parade of broken bodies.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 58 Russ Fischer
    The Boss
    McCarthy has a great knack for vicious verbiage, and in combination with her supreme physical control there's pleasure in seeing Darnell tear an opponent to shreds, even (or especially) when she's in the wrong.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 42 Russ Fischer
    Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
    Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice is an extraordinarily odd, idiosyncratic movie that presents aggressive, even warlike concepts of Batman and Superman without entirely justifying the eccentric visions.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Russ Fischer
    Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
    Fey's work is strong, yet it's difficult to squash the impression that this could be a more powerful movie, and an even more significant showcase for Tina Fey.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 42 Russ Fischer
    Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
    It is shriekingly loud but never surprising; goofy, but rarely funny.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Russ Fischer
    Swiss Army Man
    Swiss Army Man is a big swing — there's no denying the risk in putting two well-known actors in a film where one plays a barely-mobile corpse — but also a big whiff that rarely connects its characters and situations to humor or empathy.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Russ Fischer
    Captain Fantastic
    Captain Fantastic uses bleak but gentle comedy to pinpoint the variety of ways we wrestle with grief, but the film undermines Mortensen's performance and its own thematic ambitions by presenting the character as little more than an idealized fantasy figure.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 42 Russ Fischer
    Belgica
    Belgica is just like its characters, unwilling to shake a fascination with superficial pleasures to dive into any significant interactions.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 58 Russ Fischer
    13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
    Bay's overwrought tendencies simultaneously lead to the film's most compelling sequences of tense, bloody battle even as they forestall the more nuanced storytelling that would be crucial to truly unpacking the attacks. Bay may see the film as a cry of truth; muffled by his own predilections it's only a whisper.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Russ Fischer
    Sisters
    In the end there's nothing surprising in Sisters, except for the fact that it isn't anything more than a party movie.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 58 Russ Fischer
    Don Verdean
    This is ninety minutes of comic actors having a genial go at middle-of-the-road material. It doesn’t have any guts, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t funny.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Russ Fischer
    Piercing
    In the end Piercing seems more interested in aesthetic playfulness than getting the most out of these characters. Playing towards comedy helps some of the more freaky scenes go down, but that’s not a substitute for substance.

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