Shawn Levy

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Portland Oregonian
For 1,337 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 65% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 32% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Shawn Levy's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
Lowest review score: 0 Rollerball
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 994 out of 1337
  2. Mixed: 275 out of 1337
  3. Negative: 68 out of 1337
1337 movie reviews
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    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Blackthorn
    The result is a handsome but deeply fractured tale.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Tokyo!
    Despite the stories' brief running times, they don't manage to generate much interest or make much sense.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    My Wife Is an Actress
    Isn't profound or dazzling or groundbreaking. But it's a pleasant, clever and sincere little romp, proof that you don't need to harbor heroic ambitions to create something satisfying.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Dust to Glory
    The single most impressive thing about the film, in fact, is the taste that this shotgun technique gives of the mass simultaneity of the race.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Red Hook Summer
    This isn't the "Right Thing" in any sense.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Funny People
    You find yourself wishing that Apatow had managed a script that was either really funny or about real people instead of this half-baked pseudo-memoir that's neither.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    The Cat's Meow
    Swell when it purrs, when the three top stars are in full form, but it spits and hisses and screeches too often to take full hold.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Troubadours
    It's woeful as a documentary history -- a real missed opportunity.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Hollywood Homicide
    A film of curiosities and asides, it deliberately eschews plot in favor of character quirk, which is fine in theory and even commendable. But the quirks are lame, the ultimate conflation of story lines is clumsy.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Trucker
    Fiercely acted but made with indifferent craft and no palpable feel for its subject matter, Trucker takes you on a ride from intrigue to indifference.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Shark Tale
    Noisy, garish, cluttered, simplistic and often dark in content, it nevertheless sings and preens and jokes and tugs at you with such persistent verve that, exhausted, you give in.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    The Notorious Bettie Page
    A feature film has to be more than just an interesting theme; it needs something that constitutes drama -- conflict, journey, adventure, what have you. The Notorious Bettie Page is a perfect example of a film that has a subject but no story.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    The Last Circus
    Begins with an eye on satire but dissolves quickly into grotesquerie -- and if the first tack was a bit narrow, the second is far too scattershot.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Elf
    If you're one of those fussy filmgoers who demands that a movie engage somewhat higher body parts -- the heart, say, and the brain -- you'll find only intermittent comfort and joy in this high-concept, low-wattage film.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Black Book
    The storytelling -- the script is co-written by Verhoeven's old collaborator Gerard Soeteman -- is messy, and the result never feels real or human or vital.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Matchstick Men
    Despite a cast of solid actors and a director with one of the most exquisite visual sensibilities in the business, the film is too often flat when we want it to dazzle us.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Mia and the Migoo
    It's lovely, truly, but so heavy-handed and slipshod that it's probably best enjoyed with the sound off -- an option they're not likely to offer at the movie theater.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Rocky Balboa
    While Stallone likely hopes to go out with a bang, this small, manipulative movie doesn't have any real punch to it.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Ask the Dust
    Miscast, constricted, loose in tone and meandering in intent, it has far fewer moments of inspiration than unintended laughter.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Street Kings
    For what's essentially a bad movie, Street Kings is fairly tight and energetic.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Phone Booth
    Schumacher's depictions of street life are cartoonishly ludicrous and riddled with cliches -- a pair of garish hookers, for instance, can't be excused simply because one is played with engaging vigor by Paula Jai Parker.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
    Alas, none of it, save Kristin Scott Thomas giving a peach of a performance as a political operative, smacks of real life or vitality. Even when it evinces spasms of life, this film is, more or less, a dead fish.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    The Weather Man
    A sour, deflating and ultimately unlikable black comedy about how awful life can be.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Despicable Me
    There's no reason to actively dislike the film, but that's not enough, not at today's ticket prices. Just because you're not despicable, after all, doesn't mean you're the pick of the litter.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Tape
    The best thing about the film is the acting of the guys.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    The Chorus
    In the end, it's a perfectly decent, perfectly vaporous film, pretty but slight, predictable but never incompetent.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    The Fall
    There's no doubt that Tarsem's a visionary director. Now he needs to envision a worthwhile script for himself.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    The Merchant of Venice
    Even though it largely succeeds in putting a civil face on some unpalatable material, it lacks the heat and suppleness of the best Shakespeare on film.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    Love & Basketball
    The film's best sequences -- the troubles of the young woman -- are gems adrift in a sea of Jell-O.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Shawn Levy
    In the Cut
    An intermittently gorgeous and evocative film that's so taken with its trangressively bloody and erotic content, it neglects such fussy niceties as coherent plotting and the creation of characters of middling intelligence, plausible psychology or sympathetic nature.
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