Tasha Robinson

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For 807 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 57% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Tasha Robinson's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 64
Highest review score: 100 Son of Saul
Lowest review score: 0 Sydney White
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 66 out of 807
807 movie reviews
    • 58 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Anyone already planning on seeing Stoker, the English-language film debut of Oldboy and Thirst director Park Chan-wook, shouldn’t read this review. Or watch a trailer. Or read anything about it at all, really...It’s best taken one tense, exhilarating moment at a time, without anticipation or expectation.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    So polished that it might pass for a scripted narrative feature, but that's not a bad thing. They found a remarkable spokesman in Bolivian teenager Basilio Vargas, and while his cogent, organized descriptions of his life, beliefs, history, and ambitions sometimes seem too calculated, at least they're calculated to communicate efficiently and appealingly.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Plenty of horror movies are willing to settle for making audiences jump. Mama is more ambitious by far: It makes sure viewers are emotionally committed even when they aren't clutching their armrests or covering their eyes.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    It walks a fascinating line between morbid humor and outright horror, and it consistently defies expectations by resetting them at every possible step.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Svankmajer's nihilistic story isn't for everyone, but he skillfully manages its disturbing execution in ways no one else could, and he brings it across in a darkly comedic way that encourages simultaneous laughter, horror, and thought. If that isn't art, what is?
    • 65 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    In a real sort of way, Gilliam IS Parnassus, carrying his tatterdemalion show forward from year to year and trying to get people to pay attention, and the mingled sense of bitterness and hope in his story makes this whole crazed fantasy into something far more real.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The story is a standard fairy-tale concoction, but the New Agey philosophy about healing and heroism makes for a classic Henson story, all heart and rapturous wonder at the world's incredible possibilities.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The occasional missteps (some overly precious symbolism, the grimy DV look) rarely get in the way of the film’s many winces, gasps, and breathless, cringing anticipation.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    This is the most epic of the Harry Potter movies, the one that finally dispenses with side-quests and open-ended plotlines and offers up all the final payoffs.
    • The A.V. Club
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    As with the Wallace & Gromit films, most of the fun is in the deft characterizations, the zippy banter, and the joyous sight gags.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    This is Csupo's feature directorial debut, but as creator, producer, and writer of "Rugrats" and "The Wild Thornberrys," among several other series, he's had a long career in animation, and he handles the CGI setpieces masterfully.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Powell and Loy's light, witty, unflappable characterizations became the unwavering backbone of a terrific series.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    It's a beautifully shot, beautifully acted piece of fluff.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Annihilation is a portentous movie, and a cerebral one. It’s gorgeous and immersive, but distancing. It’s exciting more in its sheer ambition and its distinctiveness than in its actual action.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    While the film doesn't dig deep, or hit particularly hard, it neatly achieves its modest goals: presenting a real-life heroine in real-life terms. A film this fictionalized rarely feels this much like fact.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Though Prometheus follows "Alien's" story beats, it's a looser and less satisfying story, more intellectual than visceral, and not fully satisfying on either level. But in part, that's because it's trying to do so much more.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Up
    Up is challenging, emotionally and narratively, but it trusts viewers to keep up; Pixar has never been interested in talking down to children or their parents.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    What keeps the story fresh isn't so much Guadagnino's swooning sense-reveries, which sometimes flow with dreamlike wonder and sometimes just drag; instead, most of the power comes from Swinton, who always makes the most of characters imbued by passion, but straitjacketed by expectations.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    It might be considered admirable how firmly Titley sticks to the facts, rather than trying to draw out a moral from the entire situation. But it leaves the story feeling more like a quirky, isolated human-interest story than a watershed moment in the development of exploitative, stunt-driven reality television.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Attempts to address grief frankly, gently, and without didacticism, and it largely succeeds.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Maybe Stiller just seems stilted because he's the only one here who isn't playing to the rafters.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The film bounces along on cheap but entertaining Mel Brooks-worthy audio and visual gags, like the live-chicken-throwing fight, or the sequence where the camera discreetly pans away from Dujardin and a partner making out on his hotel bed--only to focus on a full-length mirror in which they're still fully visible.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    While In Darkness sticks to formula, it brings across that formula effectively.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The story should be a standard mismatched-couple-falls-in-love tale, but the script and the sprightly directing give the story plenty of snap and humor, and the animation is so luminously beautiful that even a falling-in-love sequence cribbed in part from The Little Mermaid is overwhelmingly magical.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    It's an accomplished potboiler entertainment, as calculated and clever as the stories Irving spins to stay afloat in the growing sea of his own lies.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The moody tone and carefully balanced drama turn a grubby premise into something unexpectedly elegant.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Like the best claustrophobic thrillers, the film keeps finding clever new ways to complicate what initially seems like a limited setting with limited story options.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Disney’s triumphant return to hand-drawn 2-D animation still holds an awful lot of familiar, comfort-food charm.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The King's Speech is admirably free of easy answers and simple, happy endings; it's a skewed, awards-ready version of history, but one polished to a fine, satisfying shine.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    It’s a gorgeous, visually ambitious film, full of show-offy setpieces reportedly inspired by the work of Hayao Miyazaki.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    It's a daring, even mildly challenging mixture for a superhero film, and while the pieces don't entirely add up, the puzzle is at least original.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Audiences will likely come away from The Last Jedi with a lot of complaints and questions. But they’re at least likely to feel they’re in the hands of someone who cares about the series as much as they do, someone who loves its history, but sees the wide-open future ahead of it as well.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Only Washington stands out; he's charming, intense, and charismatic as ever.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Spider-Man: Homecoming brings the character back to his basics. In the process, it shows why he’s always been such a popular draw, and it makes a strong argument for a branch of the MCU / Sony heroverse that operates on a smaller scale than the rest of the world.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Mermin presents all this without editorial comment, and her film would be worth watching if only for its look at a profound culture-clash. But it goes one better, and delves into one of those clashing cultures, capturing it in a moment of change that goes far beyond one beauty academy's superficial concerns.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    While it's essentially just another slick Spielberg action machine, it's operating effectively on all cylinders throughout.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    This caper film possesses Miyazaki's usual good-hearted charm, but he injects a manically energetic humor that his more sedate children's films never quite achieve.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The film has any number of chances to exploit the setting and Butterfield's wide-eyed innocence, but instead, it mines a vast, eerie tension by keeping both boys in the dark.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    At its best, Micmacs is a robust, enjoyably lunatic game. It's social commentary by way of a good Looney Tune.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Anyone who's been closely involved with a wedding knows exactly how these beleaguered schmucks feel. Those who haven't may just take Confetti as a lighthearted but convincing argument for elopement.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    A film so joyfully insane that it feels like Kon is overcompensating.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Public Enemy openly raises the question of why officers of the law hated Mesrine so much that they were willing to turn his death into a block party.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    It’s a dark, grim, suffocating story that only missteps by overplaying its hand, making the larger message about prostitution increasingly overt.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    After Yang is intensely internal and personal, as grief so often is, which guarantees it won’t connect with a wide audience. But as a collection of images and moods, all gently nudging at that central question of what defines a person, it’s gravely hypnotic. It’s an old question, asked in a new way, with deepest gravity and respect.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    It’s a daringly weird debut, executed with real style and vision.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The whole film is too reliant on action-movie cuts and zooms, plus James Horner's insistent score, but it's beautifully rendered and convincingly exciting.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Mangold delivers a taut modern take on a lesser classic, preserving the "High Noon" themes about doing the right thing against all odds, and injecting a more modern pacing and urgency without going overboard. His film isn't Leonard's classic, but it's a solid, genre-respecting Western in its own right.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The surreality is distancing, but authentic, believable performances and a low-key affect keep Running From Scissors from turning shrill.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    What is surprising is how he (Darabont) rebounds from his weak, awkwardly compressed opening to produce one of the scariest King films since Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining."
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    This is the kind of film where viewers can let themselves flow with the film’s emotion, or entirely ignore the action and just get lost in the beauty of the imagination. Either way, it’s a luscious trip to take.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    There's nothing wrong with animation aimed at adults, but this may be the first kids' movie that throws fewer bones to its supposed intended viewers than to their parents.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Nair's film is a joyous triumph in the way it makes the story accessible, without losing sight of the specifics that make it not just a true story, but a complete and real one.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    The film moves effortlessly, with plenty of tense thrills and surprise reveals. It’s relentless, but rarely rushed. The action is terse, and in one unexpected case, breathless and terrifying.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Cars is a fine example of the formula, with pleasant chemistry, the patented Pixar cleverness, and the usual sweetly melancholy nostalgia courtesy of songwriter Randy Newman.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    For a film about suicide, Wristcutters is agreeably loopy and game. Dukic is bitterly funny rather than maudlin, and his carefully plotted grunge chic, in addition to being cheap, lends the film a great deal of Jim Jarmusch grime to go with its unmistakable Jim Jarmusch quirk.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Tasha Robinson
    Has its heartbreaking moments and its surprise giggles, particularly thanks to Ron Hewat's minor role as a former hockey play-by-play announcer now narrating his nursing-home life.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    It’s colorful and charming, and it’s certainly unique in its story specifics. But it also feels safe, simple, and soft-edged compared to Pixar’s wilder swings for the outfield.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    It’s depressing, in more ways than one, given its cynical take on what makes life worthwhile, and what we have to do to preserve it. But it’s also refreshing to see science fiction this aware of how actively we’re careening toward a terrible future, and how our response to it is likely to be specific, personal, and just as selfish as the behavior that gets us there in the first place.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    For all the eye-popping battles and fast-moving action, it’s an emotional story that takes the time to explore what its protagonist really wants out of life, and why god-tier power may be as much of a burden as a benefit.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    Ghostbusters is a lively, hilarious crowd-pleaser, which is all that's really required of a big summer action comedy.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    Men
    Men is nearly unique as a horror movie in Harper’s specific response to the threats she faces. But even as she parts ways with the usual wailing victim image, the film still holds onto its sense of the uncanny and horrific. Even seasoned body-horror fans may be shaken by where this film goes in terms of its bloody physicality.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    It’s no wonder that every part of Across the Spider-Verse is an attempt to outdo the first movie. The idea of growing, of surpassing and ignoring everyone else’s limits, is the heart of this series’ heroes and their individual journeys. It looks like the movies themselves are designed to follow suit.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    The story of The Vast of Night is nothing particularly special. The storytelling, though, is spectacular.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    Good horror-comedy is hard to pull off, but Hsu finds his balance by steering hard into the comedy, while pouring on the fake blood.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    Presence is more intellectual than visceral, more engaged with raising questions than pinning viewers to their seats.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    Vogt makes deliberate, thoughtful choices that amp up the story’s drama and horror without ever turning it into the kind of action-centric special-effects showcase Americans have come to expect even from their low-budget superpower stories.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 82 Tasha Robinson
    Dystopian sci-fi has rarely been as delicately and beautifully detailed as Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper’s new film.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    It unfolds with a fascinating specificity that goes well beyond the Batman details, and unlocks a lot of conversation-starting thoughts about the various ways and reasons people associate with different fandoms.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    This is a film about the wilds — internal and external — and Saulnier shoots both the natural and the human side of the story with his usual sharp instincts for startling and engaging images.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    Watching it is a cheer-along experience.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    The Founder’s biggest strength is that it doesn’t lose the story or the characters in the larger metaphor about the gap between creation and exploitation.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    The weight of graphic, grotesque violence hangs over the entire movie. But the daring emotional violence lingers longer, well after the lights go down on the final shot.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    Given how much of the film is spent on watching tiny items grow to improbable size, and huge objects shrink down to the scale of toys, it seems only appropriate that Ant-Man and the Wasp neatly balances its big, serious concerns with its little petty ones. It’s a movie that understands all the variances of scale, and takes the audience along for the ride as they constantly change.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    The film packs in so much material that it's bound to have dead ends and weak spots, but its confidence in its provocations is compelling.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    In the end, it doesn’t feel like Jonathan fully commits to its own premise.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    The sheer dynamism and energy of the movie are compelling, even when the character drama isn’t.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    It’s a heightened, sometimes stagey take on a trashy exploitation flick, but it is mesmerizing.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    The subjects of Girls State are trying to express their confidence about their power and impact in the world, while simultaneously watching their country deny them rights over their own bodies and emphasize their powerlessness. There’s a particularly uncomfortable irony in watching them working to piece together their own political beliefs and futures while their government is shutting down their options.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    For viewers who are still impressed by CGI destruction and thrilled by the sight of realistic mechas in action, Uprising is yet another escalation in scale, staged creatively and with apparent love for the old-school kaiju genre.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    Incredibles 2 is a lighter and more incident-packed adventure. The same characters are running through some of the same emotions but with much less of a sense of weight and impact.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    The sequel actually slows down the story a bit, with a lower jokes-per-second rate and a little more time for contemplation. But instead of making the new film smaller or duller, it leaves room for a little more sophistication. The sequel’s best gag isn’t a one-liner or a one-off, it’s subtly and fundamentally built into the story.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    The film’s eye-candy is endlessly impressive and a worthy reason to see the film in a theater, but it’s never as memorable as authentic, unique story moments like Hiccup’s first connection with Toothless in the series’s first installment.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 81 Tasha Robinson
    The movie is packed with deep colors, glorious texture, and striking sequences, plus plenty of drone footage showcasing unspoiled, rough wilderness. Apex’s narrative simplicity (and the fact that it’s a Netflix movie) might lend itself to second-screen viewing, but anyone who lets their attention wander to their phone is going to miss some beautiful footage that makes this story seem a lot bigger than it is.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    Let The Fire Burn is a fascinating look at official overreaction, government overreach, and the corrupting effects of prejudice on powerful institutions.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    The story of America's first successful class-action sexual-harassment lawsuit may sound dull, but Caro ratchets up the intensity until every flung epithet and threat stings. The approach is sometimes shrill, but it's effective.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    While The Fault In Our Stars is more pastel watercolor than hard-edged drama, it’s still hugely warm and winning, thanks in large part to Boone’s unfussy, wistful direction.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    Nimród Antal's terrific feature debut Kontroll takes some time to get up to speed--but once it's fully underway, it develops a heady momentum and a devastating impact.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    Along the way, Murderball surpasses the typical who-will-win sports-film dynamic and becomes a fascinating and personal exploration of quadriplegia.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    Whenever it hits its stride, it's a well-acted, vividly executed, full-speed-ahead special-effects extravaganza that puts as much bang as possible into every remaining scene.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    It's a patient film, and it requires some patience from its audience. But its rewards are gentle and winning, and for once, a cinematic history lesson doesn't feel artificial and processed in every pore.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    The doc never feels propulsive, or even particularly informative, and it never has to. For people who remotely enjoy the existence of dogs, Well Groomed is one of the most wholesome, joyous, purely enjoyable documentaries in the streaming world, and Stern doesn’t aspire to anything more.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    Generations of readers have found The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe to be a gripping adventure that reaches well beyond its religious underpinnings, and this robust version respects both aspects and finds the same winning balance of excitement and meaning.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    Carney’s emphasis is more on performance than craftsmanship. His camera lovingly covers the actual act of bringing music to life, and he makes being in the middle of a band look like the most revitalizing and rewarding place on Earth.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    It’s a quiet film of modest narrative ambitions and simple shifts. But its technical and visual ambitions couldn’t be higher. It’s as if Ghibli is still trying to raise its own bar, so that even if it’s going out, it’s reminding viewers what they’d be missing.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    The beginning of the film is purposefully surprising in many little ways, but the rest of the film is a gorgeously shot, heart-in-throat wait to see whether the payoff can dodge expectations nearly as well. The journey is more important than the destination, but Wladyka makes enough daring choices to make both worthwhile.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    It’s the work of a director deeply enamored of his source material, and determined to do right by it, even if it means frightening kids, baffling parents, and embracing whatever style works in the moment.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    Deserted Station plays out like a dream, but Raisian moves comfortably between fantasy and nightmare, real and surreal.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    The humor edges against absurdism, but stays self-aware and witty, with that mild-mannered optimism presiding.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    What makes Human Capital a worthwhile experience is the way [Virzí] focuses on understanding his characters’ desires, rather than deriding them as unworthy.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Tasha Robinson
    Compare any of this to the grinding series of vicious gags from, say, pretty much any Ben Stiller movie post-Flirting With Disaster, and Fast Times starts looking like a tame jokefest even grandma can enjoy. There's no crotch damage, no humorously dead animals, no pie-fucking, and no menstrual-blood-on-the-pants jokes, either. At its most graphic, it's got a little good-natured pot humor...It's just pure, lighthearted, relatively respectful fun. With boobs.

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