Todd McCarthy

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The Hollywood Reporter, Variety
For 1,835 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 49% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Todd McCarthy's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Mulholland Dr.
Lowest review score: 0 Showgirls
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 947 out of 1835
  2. Mixed: 724 out of 1835
  3. Negative: 164 out of 1835
1835 movie reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Todd McCarthy
    1917
    Even if the film is mostly hitting familiar notes in terms of story and theme, it expresses a concise, focused and expertly managed vision with which there’s little to quibble, and the extraordinary style represents the fruition of a long-imagined dream on the part of many directors and cinematographers. From now on, when the discussion turns to great works of cinematography and camera operating, 1917 will always have to be high on the list.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Todd McCarthy
    Richard Jewell
    It’s Hauser who carries the film in a rare and unlikely role, that of a presumed loser in life (the man did die just a few years later, at 44) who suffered very unwanted attention — but who, when he needed to, found a way to rise to the occasion.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Todd McCarthy
    21 Bridges
    The ever-righteous profile maintained by Boseman’s detective gets to be a bit limiting after a while; if anything was going to have multiple dimensions in this film, it should have been him, but the script is instead built around the goal of providing maximum movement and hoped-for tension. It’s got the former but only sporadically achieves the latter.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    Frozen II
    Frozen 2 has everything you would expect — catchy new songs, more time with easy-to-like characters, striking backdrops, cute little jokes, a voyage of discovery plot and female empowerment galore — except the unexpected.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Todd McCarthy
    Dark Waters
    Successfully restraining himself throughout from getting fancy or experimental, Haynes has intently devoted himself to the story and his actors, with strong, unshowy work that ideally serves the tale being told.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Todd McCarthy
    Queen of Hearts
    The film maintains its edge because el-Toukhy serves up this unsavory dish cold, without any mollifying humanistic judgments or reassurances that people are actually better than this. The central character is as heartless as any treacherous double-crosser in a film noir, but without the constant stylistic reminder that we live in a nasty, dark, dog-eat-dog world.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    Doctor Sleep
    It doesn’t have Jack Nicholson, Stanley Kubrick or even much of the Overlook Hotel, but Rebecca Ferguson and other good actors provide some shine of their own in Doctor Sleep, a drawn-out and seldom pulse-quickening follow-up to The Shining that still has enough going on to forestall any audience slumber.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Todd McCarthy
    Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
    Every conceivable button is pushed to achieve rote satisfaction in young viewers, while any notion of creating tension and suspense is dutifully ignored. Not for a moment is actual peril considered as something worthy of a dramatic climax.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Todd McCarthy
    Memory: The Origins of Alien
    Saving some of the best for last, director Philippe makes outstanding use of footage of what in the trade is called the money shot, the startling payoff that everything has been building toward — in this case, of course, the scene featuring the “chestburster.”
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Todd McCarthy
    The Kingmaker
    An engaging, appalling but inevitably partial portrait of a woman who has navigated through countless political and personal squalls but remains irretrievably drawn to the flame of power.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 40 Todd McCarthy
    Lucy in the Sky
    Lucy in the Sky is the odd film that starts cosmically big and gradually becomes narrower and more conventional as it goes along, to diminishing returns.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Todd McCarthy
    Motherless Brooklyn
    Ultimately, frustration and fatigue prevail over the film’s intellectual acuity and political insight; neither is any true emotion ever forthcoming. This is odd and disappointing.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Todd McCarthy
    Jojo Rabbit
    The cartoonishness of it, while amusing at the outset, doesn’t wear well as matters deepen and progress.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Todd McCarthy
    The Goldfinch
    In the end, there’s too much good stuff missing and yet not enough to serve as a satisfying meal.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    Hope Gap
    Hope Gap may engage the mind up to a point with its pithy dialogue and resourceful players, but it offers little insight into the complexities and wages of wedlock.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Todd McCarthy
    A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
    There’s no question that Hanks is perfect in the part, as the actor’s amiability and unquestionable sincerity make for an ideal match with the unique television personality. Marielle Heller's film itself, however, is a rather more modest achievement, sympathetic and yet entirely predictable in its dramatic trajectory of making a believer of an angry, cynical journalist.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    The Assistant
    The central character never develops in an interesting way. Well before the wrap-up of this brief tale, her cultivated recessiveness becomes tiresome and, in these particular circumstances, a bit dull.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Todd McCarthy
    The Aeronauts
    The Aeronauts achieves impressive elevation as a bracing and sympathetic account of two early and very different aviators who together reached literal new heights in a perilous field of endeavor.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Todd McCarthy
    The Laundromat
    Despite the filmmaker's obvious smarts and oft-proven skills, there's a kind of off-putting effrontery about Soderbergh's approach here that rather sours the whole experience. The tone is brittle, the attitude arch, the performances by a savvy and diverse cast uneven.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Todd McCarthy
    Uncut Gems
    The Safdies and the cast go deep enough here to make the film a genuinely human one.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Todd McCarthy
    Ford v Ferrari
    The film’s lively dynamics owe much to the bristly nature of nearly every relationship and interaction in the film.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    Angel Has Fallen
    It's all utterly preposterous, and yet Waugh handles the big scenes pretty well.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Todd McCarthy
    Where'd You Go, Bernadette
    Richard Linklater's 19th feature becomes compelling in its final act, but before that too often appears tonally addled and dramatically dawdling.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Todd McCarthy
    Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
    The two leads' highly competitive shtick is more amusing than not — the insults fly hot and heavy — as are the outrageously adverse predicaments over which they invariably manage to gain an upper hand. Director Leitch figuratively winks at the audience and elbows it in the ribs as he has his characters break the laws of physics time and time again as they confront a thoroughly preposterous lineup of physical dilemmas one after another.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Todd McCarthy
    Dora and the Lost City of Gold
    In essence, every dramatic goal is achieved far too easily, every opponent is ultimately made of straw. The characters are never truly challenged, as if the filmmakers are afraid that any credible peril might prove too frightening for some little kid.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    The Lion King
    By and large, very few remakes, other than Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot reproduction of Psycho, have adhered as closely to their original versions as this one does. Everything here is so safe and tame and carefully calculated as to seem pre-digested. There's nary a surprise in the whole two hours.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    Spider-Man: Far from Home
    The young cast, led by Tom Holland as the bashful web-slinger and Zendaya as a shy girl slow to lose her inhibitions, is plenty appealing as well as funny. But without a proper, full-on villain, as well as an adequate substitute for Robert Downey Jr.'s late, oft-mentioned Tony Stark, this comes off as a less than glittering star in the Marvel firmament.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Todd McCarthy
    Toy Story 4
    Ultimately, what gives Toy Story 4 genuine heft is that it's a tale of second chances and characters who take advantage of them. Like its predecessors, the film is rambunctious, noisy, genial, unpretentious, action-packed and old-fashioned in a very good way.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    Shaft
    To listen to Jackson doing street talk is akin to reveling in Olivier reciting Shakespeare — in other words, it's one of the great pleasures of the language. Edit the film down to his dialogue and you have a wonderful greatest hits collection.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Todd McCarthy
    Men in Black: International
    In and of itself, this revamp is mildly engaging but also feels like it's expending a great deal of energy for quite modest entertainment returns.
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