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 10.2 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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    • 81 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    A Fantastic Woman
    Without preaching from the pulpit, A Fantastic Woman powerfully communicates the hostility and hatred that persons such as Marina encounter simply due to their otherness. In its way, it resembles those Hollywood-era message movies like "Gentleman’s Agreement" and "Pinky," but without the self-congratulatory importance that weighs those films down with all the subtlety of an iron anchor.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Davis
    Your Name.
    Given its nonlinear structure, Your Name requires your trust, but once you place your faith in screenwriter/director Shinkai’s expert hands, the reward will come. (Not surprisingly, the film is the fourth-highest-grossing film in Japan’s history.)
    • 81 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    Hairspray
    If ever there were a happy summer movie, it’s Hairspray. But for all its bubbly musical numbers and effervescent good humor, this film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical feels oddly lacquered -- it’s John Waters by way of Disney.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    Benediction
    Less adventurous in structure than many in Davies’ oeuvre, Benediction is both expressionistic and vivid in recounting selected particulars of an outwardly fascinating life, though something feels missing in the totality of things.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Steve Davis
    Lost Illusions
    Don’t let the early 19th-century France setting of this adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s serialized novel Illusions Perdues fool you into assuming Lost Illusions is just another stuffy period piece lacking in modern sensibility.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    Ford v Ferrari
    It’s the rare movie that doesn’t trivialize a platonic male relationship with buddy film tropes.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    The Martian
    While there are a few loose ends in Drew Goddard’s screenplay, which is faithful to but necessarily less detailed than its source, the film is a triumph of storytelling, a tribute to the power of the crowd-pleaser.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Davis
    The Hours
    Near-perfect in every way, The Hours is a compelling meditation on making the most of what we're given in life. For some, it may be too cerebral a film experience, but for those who blissfully fall into its finely tuned modulations, The Hours is timeless.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 89 Steve Davis
    Big Night
    Big Night is, in a word, delicious.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Steve Davis
    Keeping Up with the Joneses
    It’s meant to be thrilling fun, but it never takes off in the way imagined.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Steve Davis
    Savage Grace
    You can almost smell the desperation in the twisted psychosexuality of Savage Grace.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 89 Steve Davis
    Wild Rose
    The movie is like an old honky-tonk song, a little sentimental but full of heart. It torches and twangs without getting too hokey.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    Compartment No. 6
    For a while, you wonder whether the movie will become a thriller about the perils of solo travel, particularly for single females. But the intimacy of director Kuosmanen’s Dogme 95-inspired camerawork hints that something more is happening here.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    Too Late to Die Young
    Perhaps the bigger canvas here is a native daughter’s tribute to the resiliency of the people of her homeland. It’s no coincidence that the mascot chicken in this rustic Utopia is named Survive.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 89 Steve Davis
    The Old Man & the Gun
    The beauty of Redford’s rock-steady performances over the last six decades or so is that he never showed off, and yet always commanded your attention.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 89 Steve Davis
    Whose Streets?
    At its core, this movie is a piece of unflinching activism that forces you to look at something uncomfortable, something those of us in the cocoon would probably rather not see. But see it, you should. See it, you must.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 89 Steve Davis
    It Ain't Over
    Above everything else, this tribute is a valentine to a man you can’t help but love.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    Loving
    Though it’s impossible to know exactly how these two people felt in coping with this untenable situation – they only wanted to get married and raise a family, nothing else – Nichols gives you a damn good idea, even when it slightly wears your patience.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 89 Steve Davis
    Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
    Like all del Toro films, this Pinocchio thrives on a storytelling imagination that thinks outside the box.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    Priscilla
    Watching Priscilla feels much like reading a book, with images of white pills pressed into open palms and home-movie montages enhancing the text. Once again, the younger Coppola demonstrates she is as accomplished a filmmaker in her own way as her father.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 Steve Davis
    Gas Food Lodging
    It's too bad that Gas Food Lodging is as disconnected as it is because there's a real current of feeling here, especially in Balk's sympathetic performance and the film's unflinching depiction of a single woman trying to raise a family on her own. Rather than make a lasting impression, it makes only a passing one, as impermanent as the momentary view of a dying town on the highway.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    The Innocents
    This weighty French/Polish production is chock-full of moral dilemmas borne from its unthinkable scenario. At times, it’s not an easy experience.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Davis
    Barracuda
    In the end, Barracuda may not have the sharp teeth of the Hollywood nail-biters that have swum before in familiar waters. But if you’re attuned to its slow-burn charm, it still offers some bite.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 Steve Davis
    The Lost City of Z
    Despite its best intentions, The Lost City of Z never finds itself, doomed to aimlessly wander to an unsatisfying conclusion of a dream that betrays the best of men.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 78 Steve Davis
    Much Ado About Nothing
    Fillion’s performance as the constable Dogberry in this section is the film’s comic highlight. Wounded by an insult, his ass-backward indignation achieves a droll momentum that will have you chuckling. All’s well that ends well, indeed.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Davis
    Beautiful Girls
    With beauty and talent to spare, Portman is something to behold: It's as if Elizabeth Taylor and Jodie Foster were somehow genetically melded at an early age. She's definitely a beautiful girl to watch for.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 89 Steve Davis
    Kedi
    Director Ceyda Torun was born in Istanbul and lived there as a young girl, leaving the city with her family at age 11 to live in Jordan and later New York City, but it’s abundantly clear her heart has never left her birthplace. Kedi is a valentine to her childhood home.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 Steve Davis
    Last Orders
    The temporal jumps between the present and varying points in the past deprive the film of a sense of completeness; the transitions from scene to scene are largely disorienting, leaving you struggling to find your bearings.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Davis
    Meru
    A remarkable documentary in its own right.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Davis
    Till
    While it can get rightfully goose-bumpy at times, what distinguishes Till from most other well-intentioned films telling similarly themed stories set during this tumultuous era of American history is the absence of white saviors. It’s about time.
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