Steve Persall

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Tampa Bay Times
For 1,125 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 65% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 33% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Steve Persall's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Vertigo
Lowest review score: 0 The Last Airbender
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 708 out of 1125
  2. Mixed: 310 out of 1125
  3. Negative: 107 out of 1125
1125 movie reviews
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    • 61 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    Elysium
    Elysium proves better at social polemics than escapism, a balancing act Blomkamp managed well in District 9, with its allegory of South Africa's apartheid era.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Persall
    We're the Millers
    The fun of watching We're the Millers is guessing how raunchily low it will go, and realizing you've sorely underestimated these writers and actors.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 58 Steve Persall
    Lovelace
    The pleasures of Lovelace are in its casting choices, allowing a brio trio like Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria and Bobby Cannavale to sleaze up a pivotal scene, and an unrecognizable Sharon Stone to go full Jessica Lange as Linda's shamed mother.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Steve Persall
    Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
    That first movie was obviously a calculated grab for Harry Potter-type movie success but didn't feel like a rip-off. This one skews younger, to an easier-to-please demographic, closely resembling other fantasies since.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 83 Steve Persall
    2 Guns
    2 Guns is a movie based on smart callbacks and sly flip-flops of loyalty, regularly interrupted by spasms of well-staged violence.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    The To Do List
    Anything men can do women can do dirtier, funnier, fresher, since distaff raunchiness shows no signs of going stale and isn't contained to Melissa McCarthy.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Fruitvale Station
    A movie as direct and devastating as a point-blank bullet to the back, like the one that killed Oscar Grant on the first morning of a new year, 2009.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 83 Steve Persall
    The Wolverine
    If comic book movies are the last place you look for a soulful, serious performance, The Wolverine should be your first.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Persall
    RED 2
    Anthony Hopkins, new to the franchise, is introduced in a prison cell, in stir-crazy shades of Hannibal Lecter. At 53, Catherine Zeta-Jones is nearly too young for this stuff.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    The Way, Way Back
    The jokes are often double-edged, the performances always spot-on. The Way, Way Back doesn't re-invent the teenage turning point genre, but Faxon and Rash offer a breezy new spin. You'll see more inventive movies this year but few more endearing.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 25 Steve Persall
    Girl Most Likely
    If the first 90 minutes of Girl Most Likely grate and disappoint, wait until the final 10 or so, when directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini try covering their maniacally depressive tracks like cats in a litter box.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    The Conjuring
    The Conjuring is a throwback to old-school spine tingling, although this movie is less Halloween theme ride and more 1970s post-"Exorcist" terror.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Steve Persall
    Turbo
    This is such a generic endeavor — not a poor effort, just one that doesn't attempt to do anything besides splash a screen with color and movement.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Pacific Rim
    Pacific Rim gives big, dumb and loud an exemplary name and summer audiences something to cheer.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Persall
    Despicable Me 2
    There's enough here for a nice little movie, anyway, even if Al Pacino didn't think so. He was hired to voice the movie's arch villain but dropped out due to "creative differences."
    • 37 Metascore
    • 58 Steve Persall
    The Lone Ranger
    Depp is the only reason this haphazard take on the Lone Ranger legend exists, at least in this swollen state, begging the question of why Disney didn't name the movie Tonto.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Persall
    The Heat
    When director Paul Feig — who revitalized feminine comedy with "Bridesmaids" — allows McCarthy's improvisational instincts to take over because, honestly, nobody else in the cast can stand up to her. McCarthy is the best thing about The Heat.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Steve Persall
    White House Down
    White House Down is nearly enough fun to be a bad movie that's a good time. But it always finds some way of being a drag, belching exposition and weak humor when action's all we need, then carrying the action to exhausting lengths.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 91 Steve Persall
    World War Z
    World War Z presents an abundance of relatively plausible action, smart solutions and one useful piece of information: When the zombiepocalypse comes, the undead are flying coach.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Steve Persall
    The East
    The East is a crackling thriller and a political statement tough to peg.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Steve Persall
    Much Ado About Nothing
    Much Ado About Nothing is simply a fun time among Whedon and his friends, and for the most part it's contagious.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Steve Persall
    The Bling Ring
    Coppola's movie has a sense of indie vitality, although the energy feels wasted by running in place.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    Monsters University
    The movie is mostly fun and ultimately disposable, which is a letdown after Pixar's previous greatness.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Man of Steel
    Man of Steel is more than just Avengers-sized escapism; it's an artistic introduction to a movie superhero we only thought we knew.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Steve Persall
    Stories We Tell
    Plenty of secrets are uncovered before the fadeout, plus another nugget dropped midway through the end credits that may render nearly everything beforehand to be false. That's the nature of intimacies submerged so long then revealed.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 67 Steve Persall
    Before Midnight
    The movie at times resembles a screenwriting workshop, with Delpy and Hawke trying to shoehorn every shade of this shifting relationship into a single scene. It doesn't feel genuine; certainly these two would know each other better by now.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Steve Persall
    This Is the End
    There are no boundaries in this movie, so deal with it or leave.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    The Internship
    The humor is an underdog's fantasy, tapping the same vein Murray bled dry with self-important camp counselors and military officers; the less cool they are, the harder they'll fall.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 83 Steve Persall
    Now You See Me
    This movie has everything up its sleeve and presto chango at its core, ending in defiance to the plot's established logic before viewers realize they've been had.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 33 Steve Persall
    After Earth
    Fans of either Smith will be sorely disappointed. The elder never before appeared this listless on screen, and the younger misplaced his unforced rapport with the camera that made the Karate Kid reboot so impressive. Only Shyamalan delivers what moviegoers expect from him, and that's a shame.
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