Steve Davis

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Austin Chronicle
For 530 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 35% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 63% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 10.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Steve Davis' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 55
Highest review score: 100 12 Years a Slave
Lowest review score: 0 I Am Sam
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 265 out of 530
  2. Mixed: 163 out of 530
  3. Negative: 102 out of 530
530 movie reviews
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    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    The Legend of La Llorona
    The story and screenplay by Cameron Larsen and Jose Prendes, respectively, take a significant liberty with the legend for the purpose of a last-minute revelation that’s more a yawner than anything. But even if the disclosure had worked, the film offers little authentic horror (the one jump scare doesn’t count) and its suspense is negligible, though some creepy imagery, such as scorched dismembered doll arms, may momentarily get under your skin.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 20 Steve Davis
    The Addams Family 2
    With the exception of Kroll’s gravelly-intoned Uncle Fester, the voicework is sketchy, with Theron’s Seven-Sisters elocution bordering on sacrilege.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    True to the Game 2
    Apart from the nowhere storyline devoid of any interesting character development or conflict, the movie feels vaguely exploitative.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    The War with Grandpa
    The ho-hum practical jokes the two inflict upon the other can be described as Home Alone lite: No concussion-inducing swinging paint cans or burn-inducing doorknobs inspired by Looney Tunes violence here. Which, of course, takes all the fun out of it.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Like a Boss
    Aside from the committee-written script with no coherent perspective, the trouble with Like a Boss is that it never crudely outrages. It’s a bust in so many ways. The halfhearted gender and cultural political incorrectness of Hayek’s ridiculous character makes for halfhearted laughs, and that’s being generous.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 0 Steve Davis
    Playing with Fire
    This mirthless comedy about a manly crew of smokejumpers helplessly babysitting a trio of rescued brats has more dead air in it than a radio broadcast hosted by a narcoleptic disc jockey.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Breakthrough
    For a movie focusing so intently on personal faith, it doesn’t much trust your independent capacity to find religious, spiritual, or other meaning in what is truly an amazing story.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
    You could fault A Madea Family Funeral for its many other shortcomings. It runs about 30 minutes too long; the tempo of the numerous dramatic scenes is on par with drying paint; characters lack consistency from scene to scene; the dialogue sounds like a first draft that needs major editing; its occasional technical sloppiness; and so forth.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Nobody's Fool
    In the end, you feel like you’re the victim of a cruel bait-and-switch, lured into thinking Nobody’s Fool would be a crappy but nevertheless entertaining Tiffany Haddish movie, only to have it turn out to be a crappy but nevertheless crappy Tyler Perry movie. Talk about mixed feelings.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Little Women
    A serviceable cast of unfamiliar actors (the exception: Thompson as the family matriarch, Marmee); a serviceable script that takes few if any chances, with occasional wordless montages of shiny happy people; and serviceable direction that gets the job done and nothing more.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 0 Steve Davis
    Show Dogs
    Stupefyingly inane buddy-cop comedy.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Traffik
    Noble intentions, ignoble results.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    The 15:17 to Paris
    Given its can’t-miss potential, you’d think this would be one kick-ass movie. So why is The 15:17 to Paris such a trainwreck?
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    The Greatest Showman
    As the bombastic musical numbers vie to outdo each other (in one scene, lovebirds Efron and Zendaya appear to be auditioning for Cirque du Soleil), the song-and-dance man gets lost in the scenery, his charisma overwhelmed by director Gracey’s misguided preoccupation with razzle dazzle at full throttle.
    • 17 Metascore
    • 20 Steve Davis
    Tyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween
    The laughs are few and far between.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Home Again
    To be fair, not even Meg Ryan’s nose-scrunch, Kate Hudson’s sass, or Julia Roberts’ million-dollar smile could jolt this muddled rom-com to life.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 20 Steve Davis
    The Only Living Boy in New York
    The too-too-precious title flashes like a cautionary traffic sign. Warning: Pretentiousness and Pedantry Ahead.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 20 Steve Davis
    Wish Upon
    Unfortunately, the filmmakers here have no earthly idea how to execute this nifty supernatural conceit (Barbara Marshall’s screenplay appeared on the 2015 Black List), teetering between cheap laughs and cheap thrills without doing either very well.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
    No doubt, the under-10 crowd will love this bathroom vulgarity, even more so when their adult chaperones experience a flush of embarrassment.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Snatched
    The movie feels out of whack, as if big chunks were excised to ensure its relatively short 90-minute running length. Clearly, Emily and Linda aren’t the only things that go missing in Snatched.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    The Great Wall
    Whether it’s a case of miscasting is unclear, but without a willing hero to anchor this already dubious movie from start to finish, The Great Wall hits a brick wall.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Monster Trucks
    The most distressing thing is the complete lack of accountability for Tripp and Creech’s destructive joyride, which results in a significant amount of vehicular damage and possible human injury.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Allied
    Allied is so full of itself it forgets to entertain most of the time. Here’s so not looking at you, kid.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Beauty and the Beast
    Cassel’s feline visage, covered in a velvety layer of fur for most of the movie, doesn’t fare much better. At times, he resembles an angry cast member from Cats rather than the tormented fiend trying to find his human self once again. It’s beastly.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    Max Rose
    The script is replete with filler inserted in the name of “real life”: bad jokes and silly riddles, spontaneous songs, and improvised scenes in which conversations go around in circles.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Steve Davis
    Morgan
    The entire plot exists for the sole purpose of the yawning revelation in the film’s last five minutes.
    • 11 Metascore
    • 0 Steve Davis
    Nine Lives
    The dialogue is enough to make your hair stand on end.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 30 Steve Davis
    The Darkness
    It’s like being haunted by outsized chimney sweeps that never bathe. And for the most part, it’s about that scary.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 0 Steve Davis
    Gods of Egypt
    Avoid it like the plagues.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 20 Steve Davis
    Zoolander 2
    The movie is as lifeless as a mannequin until Ferrell appears near the end as the absurdly coiffed villain Jacobim Mugatu.
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