Tom Russo

Select another critic »
Boston Globe
For 366 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Tom Russo's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 Richard III
Lowest review score: 25 The Food of the Gods
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 200 out of 366
  2. Mixed: 113 out of 366
  3. Negative: 53 out of 366
366 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 32 Metascore
    • 38 Tom Russo
    Warcraft
    There’s nary an honorable death that resonates, although we do get some creative visual perspectives on enthusiastically digitized brutality. But wasn’t the game good for that already?
    • 51 Metascore
    • 75 Tom Russo
    Me Before You
    What’s somewhat unique about Jojo Moyes’s weepie, which the writer scripted from her 2012 bestseller, are the provocative dilemmas it explores to coax those tears.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    The Angry Birds Movie
    What starts out as a lowbrow gag very typical of a pedestrian ’toon gradually balloons into absurdity that Mel Brooks would probably love. Here, at least, the Angry Birds fly.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Tom Russo
    Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
    One of the best things about the movie, aside from its screwily positive message, is the blithely freewheeling yet clever way that Rogen and company assemble the story’s puzzle pieces.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 63 Tom Russo
    The Man Who Knew Infinity
    The storytelling here might also be stronger if Brown’s dialogue were less conspicuous, and left it to Patel and top-billed Jeremy Irons to more subtly communicate their characters’ passion for numbers.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    The Huntsman: Winter's War
    Pretty uninspired material for a dream-teaming of actresses who currently rate among the edgiest of them all.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 75 Tom Russo
    A Hologram for the King
    It’s like an international-relations microcosm imagined by the Coen brothers, down to an occasional sense that the absurdity isn’t taking us anywhere.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Tom Russo
    Barbershop: The Next Cut
    This time the not-so-idle talk is about taking a socially conscious stand against gang violence. And while some of this territory is covered too tritely and safely to have all the impact intended by director Malcolm D. Lee (“The Best Man Holiday”), the movie’s entreaties are compelling enough.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    Hardcore Henry
    When the action is at its sharpest, such as with Henry’s mid-chase leap from a detonating truck onto the back of a motorcycle, it’s spectacular.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 75 Tom Russo
    The Boss
    The loosey-goosey fun might be a bit much at the finish, but it’s still a laugh watching McCarthy try to get back on her feet.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 63 Tom Russo
    My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
    If you appreciated the first movie’s sweetness, then you’ll likely be charmed enough. Otherwise, you’ll find the oof-to-opa! ratio hasn’t changed.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    The Bronze
    Disappointingly, this scruffy indie doesn’t live up to its promise either, despite a few flashes of subversive inspiration.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    The Divergent Series: Allegiant
    This doesn’t even feel much like Tris’s story anymore, just generically overdigitized combat. The main thing she’s diverging from at this point is the tone that hooked us in the first place.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 25 Tom Russo
    London Has Fallen
    For the sequel, London Has Fallen, Butler and director Babak Najafi (HBO’s “Banshee”) strike a tone that’s more consistent — consistently dumb.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 63 Tom Russo
    Zootopia
    Judy and Nick’s unlikely-buddies routine is amusing, but their exploits and interplay occasionally neglect the youngest demographic.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Tom Russo
    Eddie the Eagle
    Inspiring, or amusing? Appealingly, Eddie the Eagle invites both tags.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 38 Tom Russo
    Snowtime!
    Despite a few diverting moments and some ambitiously dramatic themes, this one is simply too uneventful and too populated by thinly sketched characters to keep its target audience engaged.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Tom Russo
    Deadpool
    They even make the requisite cameo by Marvel founding father Stan Lee feel profanely inspired. Not your usual Marvel superhero scene? In this case, that’s a good thing.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    The Choice
    In the end, though, the film disappointingly, even lazily, shies away from being anything more than you’d expect.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 63 Tom Russo
    Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
    Writer-director Burr Steers delivers a screen mash-up that’s generally done in the right, warped spirit. It lampoons Austen cleverly enough at points, without winking any harder than needed.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    Kung Fu Panda 3
    A story that builds toward Po training an army of his panda brethren fails to deliver exponentially greater fun.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    Ip Man 3
    Returning director Wilson Yip commits to this tone too late, getting lost in tangential conflict and stunt casting — in this corner, Mike Tyson! — at the expense of the drama and even the action.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 38 Tom Russo
    The 5th Wave
    It’s tough to stay focused on the provocative bits when soapy talk of teenage yearning and angst keep making us snicker.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    Ride Along 2
    You’ll have to be satisfied with a modest assortment of energetically comic moments here, because the story sure isn’t a reason to catch this encore, and neither are who-asked-for-’em cast additions such as Ken Jeong.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 63 Tom Russo
    Point Break
    For all the adrenalizing positives in this reworked Point Break, inadvertent silliness remains
    • 42 Metascore
    • 63 Tom Russo
    Daddy's Home
    Consider it a predictable movie with flashes of unpredictability, one that actually coaxes some early laughs with, yes, scatological wit, then makes us groan when it shamefully takes the low road back to poopville a bit later on.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 38 Tom Russo
    Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
    It just feels misguided, not clever, when John Waters is dragged out for a cameo. That’s when you know the filmmakers must realize how hopelessly they’re caught in a loop-the-loop of punchless comedy.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Tom Russo
    Creed
    After a long, long stretch in which the series’ attrition had come to feel like even more of a bummer than intended — no more Mickey, no Apollo, no Adrian — the franchise has welcome new life. But instead of going by Rocky, he goes by Creed.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    Secret in Their Eyes
    What’s ironic — and frustrating — is how precipitously the movie itself eventually goes tumbling down the intelligence scale. In the process, Chiwetel Ejiofor is wasted, along with some potent moments from costars Roberts and Nicole Kidman.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Tom Russo
    My All American
    Angelo Pizzo knows inspirational sports drama. As the writer of “Hoosiers” and “Rudy,” Pizzo has made a career out of mining the genre and its themes of underdog determination and locker-room brotherhood. But he’s overmatched in his directing debut, the well-intentioned football biopic My All American.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »