Baltimore Sun's Scores

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For 2,175 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Odd Man Out
Lowest review score: 0 Double Team
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,245 out of 2175
  2. Mixed: 548 out of 2175
  3. Negative: 382 out of 2175
2175 movie reviews
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  1. Black Knight
    The best thing about Black Knight is when it finally says goodnight.
    • Baltimore Sun
  2. Novocaine
    Novocaine is neither funny enough to be a comedy, nor dark enough to be a true film noir. Like the drug of the title, it just kind of leaves you numb and anxious to taste the good stuff once again.
    • Baltimore Sun
  3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
    All it lacks are the crucial things an inspired director could have provided: spark, soul and magic.
    • Baltimore Sun
  4. Shallow Hal
    A one-joke movie. What makes it misfire is that its one joke clashes with its one idea.
    • Baltimore Sun
  5. Heist
    As a movie, Heist is merely an amiable time-killer. But it presents a terrific argument for federalizing airport security.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 25 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The One
    The One is all sound and fury, and nothing else.
    • Baltimore Sun
  7. Monsters, Inc.
    The movie may not be perfect, but it's jam-packed with goodies -- like a breakfast cereal fun-pack with a prize on every box-top.
    • Baltimore Sun
  8. Amélie
    Akin to being force-fed sugary confections from a bottomless bowl. At first the idea seems just grand, but after a while, all you want to do is scream, "Enough!"
    • Baltimore Sun
  9. Tape
    Despite its adrenalized actors, Tape is a tired return to the roots of the American indie movement's popular surge a dozen years ago. It could have been called "sex, lies and audiotape."
  10. Domestic Disturbance
    Sttrictly movie-of-the-week stuff. And not very good stuff, at that.
    • Baltimore Sun
  11. The Man Who Wasn't There
    Isn't serious enough to fulfill its ambitions, or funny enough to compensate for its failures.
    • Baltimore Sun
  12. K-PAX
    The casting in K-PAX is canny, but the picture as a whole is a clunky mix of the canny and the would-be uncanny.
  13. Life as a House
    Life as a House mounts a brutally insensitive attack on its audience's sensitivities.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Thirteen Ghosts
    As scary Halloween movies go, Thirteen Ghosts' "Oh, please" factor is pretty darn high.
    • Baltimore Sun
  15. Bones
    Regrettably, Bones is what passes for horror these days: Throw a lot of graphic, gore-filled, darkly lit stuff on the screen, and see what sticks. Discerning moviegoers should pass on the opportunity.
    • Baltimore Sun
  16. Trembling Before G-d
    Dubowski's movie is an act of hope that the basic human needs of the gay Orthodox will someday be reconciled with their faith.
  17. Focus
    A cautionary tale that's harrowing, heartbreaking and -- especially given the times, when Americans seem all-too-ready to once again judge people as a threat solely by their appearance -- disturbingly resonant.
    • Baltimore Sun
  18. From Hell
    A visionary sort of horror movie should ponder three words: "Bram Stoker's Dracula."
    • Baltimore Sun
  19. The Last Castle
    It's a mishmash of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "From Here to Eternity" and "The Great Escape," with everything complex and entertaining siphoned off.
  20. Riding in Cars with Boys
    Barrymore gives a performance that's nuanced, assured and captivating.
    • Baltimore Sun
  21. Waking Life
    A beautiful display of celluloid bungee-jumping.
  22. Bandits
    Levinson's quirky caper is rich with laughs.
  23. Corky Romano
    The only way sober adults will keep awake is wondering how the lead mobsters on "The Sopranos" -- who also are amateur film critics -- will rank the movie next year on HBO.
    • Baltimore Sun
  24. Iron Monkey
    Viewers impressed by the fairly standard martial-arts action of "Crouching Tiger" will really be wowed after seeing this film.
    • Baltimore Sun
  25. Mulholland Dr.
    A dizzying - sometimes frustrating - marvel of moviemaking instinct and ingenuity.
  26. My First Mister
    It's a real shame the film gets mushy at the end. The result is an all too conventional ending on a film that should have been much better.
    • Baltimore Sun
  27. Fat Girl
    Like "Anais," the only surprises Breillat has in store for us are bad ones. In the willfully perverse final act, she delivers a sadistic blow to the audience -- with a sledgehammer.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Grateful Dawg
    This is a video stroll through a family scrapbook.
    • Baltimore Sun
  29. Joy Ride
    The potential for action never lets up; you never know what's coming around the next corner.
    • Baltimore Sun
  30. Training Day
    Denzel Washington does a cocksure turn in Training Day -- That may be enough to transform a shallow picture with delusions of grandeur into a crowd-pleasing hit.
    • Baltimore Sun
  31. Serendipity
    Maybe the best way to see Serendipity is to take a cue from the characters and wait a few years.
    • Baltimore Sun
  32. Va Savoir (Who Knows?)
    You may find Va Savoir pleasant to sit through, but will it stay with you the next morning? Who knows?
  33. Diamond Men
    This is Forster's show, and he doesn't disappoint.
    • Baltimore Sun
  34. Don't Say a Word
    Maybe this is a psychological thriller after all: Every thinking member of the audience will be driven insane.
  35. Zoolander
    Well-paced, scathingly funny satire of the fashion industry and its eminently lampoonable pomposity.
    • Baltimore Sun
  36. Hearts in Atlantis
    It's not hell, but limbo, junior high-school style.
  37. Vampire Hunter D
    Fans of anime probably will find Vampire Hunter D plenty thrilling. Non-fans, or those not familiar with the genre, will enjoy the film's gothic atmosphere, but may wonder what all the fuss is about.
    • Baltimore Sun
  38. The Endurance
    A great adventure.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 12 Critic Score
    Liam
    Liam's deck is stacked. It's too bleak and filled with abrasive characters who don't deserve our sympathy to reveal much new about the human condition.
    • Baltimore Sun
  40. Glitter
    Glitter does no one any favors.
    • Baltimore Sun
  41. Haiku Tunnel
    Delivers deliciously low blows at corporate America, office politics and the lengths people will go to avoid work.
    • Baltimore Sun
  42. Hard Ball
    As shallow and manipulative a movie as any that come to mind.
    • Baltimore Sun
  43. Our Lady of the Assassins
    The blend of chic histrionics and ultra-bright daylight imagery make much of the movie resemble a network soap opera with an on-location interlude. It looks as cheap as life is held in Medellin.
  44. Rock Star
    Rock Star neither touches a raw nerve nor garners any resonance as a period piece. You'd be better off renting "This is Spinal Tap."
  45. L.I.E.
    One of the year's most unsettling -- and perhaps most illuminating -- films.
    • Baltimore Sun
  46. O
    This turgid melodrama fast-breaks away from the heart of its own subject.
  47. Tortilla Soup
    The whole cast is good. It's too bad all that good work isn't in service to a better, or certainly more original, script.
    • Baltimore Sun
  48. Together
    A friendly movie, as scruffy and cozy as a woolen watch cap.
  49. Happy Accidents
    "Happy Accidents" should retire Tomei's status as part of a show-biz urban legend and establish her once and for all as one of our most versatile and engaging performers.
    • Baltimore Sun
  50. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
    It's deliciously warped, deceptively smart and undeniably funny. Isn't that enough?
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 21 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Summer Catch
    A fuzzy, feel-good movie about baseball, babes and believing in yourself.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Bubble Boy
    It seems that in the movies, at least, there is a limit to how far low expectations can take you.
    • Baltimore Sun
  53. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
    The problem with Allen's latest, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, is "Not enough Double Indemnity."
  54. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
    Although it's in the same genre as "The English Patient," it's a vastly better movie --more surprising and original, more rigorous and sympathetic. This film is oddly shaped. It is also heartbreaking and exhilarating.
  55. American Outlaws
    It's a sad day for film lovers when the best thing that can be said about a Western is that it's pleasant.
    • Baltimore Sun
  56. Rat Race
    Despite these flaws, people sick of gross-out films and teen-sex comedy may be so hungry for farce that they laugh.
  57. Osmosis Jones
    David Hyde Pierce is hilarious as Drix, a take-charge dose of medicine. No performer is better at wringing laughs from an unflappable --- make that semi-flappable - delivery.
  58. An American Rhapsody
    For a movie with such a vibrant real-life base, An American Rhapsody is surprisingly low-impact.
  59. Audition
    The images here are graphic and disturbing. But Miike somehow manages to stop just short of disgusting.
    • Baltimore Sun
  60. Apocalypse Now Redux
    The movie's jabbing originality is what sticks in your memory.
  61. Planet of the Apes
    If only the director, or his deus, could have delivered us from the inevitable shock ending, which blends Darwin and Einstein with purest P.T. Barnum.
    • Baltimore Sun
  62. Bread and Tulips
    Soldini's consistently understated touch, and a poignant turn by Licia Maglietta as the confused and bemused main character, turns Bread and Tulips into a character study worth studying.
    • Baltimore Sun
  63. Greenfingers
    The latest in a line of quirky, feel-good British comedies, Greenfingers fits right into the breezily entertaining mold but doesn't expand it.
    • Baltimore Sun
  64. America's Sweethearts
    Turns the kleig lights around to produce a wry and dead-on commentary on the film industry and the journalists who cover it.
    • Baltimore Sun
  65. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    This is Mitchell's show, and his performance lives up to his triple billing as writer, director and star.
    • Baltimore Sun
  66. Ghost World
    In his first fiction feature, Zwigoff doesn't forget to bring the funny. But he doesn't bring enough poetry.
  67. Jurassic Park III
    Despite all its talk of genetic engineering and its deliberately stupid characters, the unintended message of Jurassic Park III is that when it comes to art and entertainment, you can't beat human DNA.
  68. The Score
    What's fatal to the film is that De Niro's character, though compelling, is so temperate and wise he gives no indication of why he was drawn to a life of crime.
  69. Made
    Made is an amateur-hour buddy movie.
    • Baltimore Sun
  70. Legally Blonde
    A smart comedy about a smart blonde -- that would be a sensation. But a dumb comedy about a smart blonde turns out to be not bad.
  71. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    It's a blast!
    • Baltimore Sun
  72. Kiss of the Dragon
    Jet Li and Bridget Fonda form a terrific bond in this action film. And the choreography adds a nice kick, too.
  73. Cats & Dogs
    There are the gadgets and the effects. But Cats and Dogs definitely could have been more fetching.
    • Baltimore Sun
  74. Scary Movie 2
    The material has a definite "haven't-we-been over-this-before?" feel.
    • Baltimore Sun
  75. The Closet
    The movie's steady good humor and respect for character is pleasing - even energizing.
  76. Pootie Tang
    By the end, Pootie Tang feels as long as Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp."
  77. Crazy/Beautiful
    The story seems fresh and alive. They also had the good sense to cast Dunst, at 19 already one of Hollywood's finest and most consistent actresses.
  78. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
    Ends up neither fish nor fowl. It's a misanthrope's "E.T."
    • Baltimore Sun
  79. Come Undone
    Come Undone would have benefited immensely from less constricted performances from Elkaim and Rideau, both of whom go through the film determined not to crack a smile.
    • Baltimore Sun
  80. Lumumba
    Lumumba revives the tradition of Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers" and Costa-Gavras' "Z" and "State of Siege." In substance and excitement, it joins their ranks.
    • Baltimore Sun
  81. Baby Boy
    A mistaken message is a price a filmmaker pays when he tries to load weighty themes like the cycle of violence on an overgrown boy who scoots around on a bicycle.
  82. The Princess and the Warrior
    Tykwer made Potente a star in Run Lola Run, and here she repays him 10 times over. Without her force of gravity, this film would waft into the ether.
  83. The Fast and the Furious
    If it worked, The Fast and the Furious would put viewers in the same position as the policeman protagonist, attracted to speed but appalled by crime. Instead it sentences you to an hour and a half in a high-decibel limbo.
  84. Dr. Dolittle 2
    What makes the "Dolittle" movies stand out from this menagerie is the superb casting and matching of the animals and their human voices.
  85. Songcatcher
    Whenever the movie threatens to become just another visit to hillbilly-land, the music starts up and the film's gentle, irresistible wonder takes hold. Songcatcher is a film very much worth catching.
    • Baltimore Sun
  86. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
    There's no clear plot, no memorable villains, no real logic. But there sure is action.
    • Baltimore Sun
  87. Sexy Beast
    Kingsley gives the movie a jolt and blows the rest of it to pieces.
    • Baltimore Sun
  88. Divided We Fall
    Divided We Fall has a lot going for it, but its Places in the Heart ending, sentimental and incongruous, helps ensure that it will not find a place in a demanding audience's heart or mind.
  89. Swordfish
    A souped-up roadster of a film, a relentless action flick that looks great and moves with more grace and speed than seems possible.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 40 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Evolution
    Tries to rock our world, but it regresses to a single-celled B-movie.
    • Baltimore Sun
  91. The Anniversary Party
    A cautionary tale, a warning not to gather all of your neurotic friends in one room - or better yet, not to have so many neurotic friends.
    • Baltimore Sun
  92. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    Enough flair and conviction to keep the movie buoyant even when its plot is abrupt and its emotionality conventional.
    • Baltimore Sun
  93. What's the Worst That Could Happen?
    Best when DeVito plays off the supporting cast surrounding him.
    • Baltimore Sun
  94. Himalaya
    Himalaya does for yak caravans what "Red River" did for cattle drives: it sees them as the stuff of epic conquest.
  95. The Road Home
    It's the rare film that trusts both its audience's intelligence and its emotions.
    • Baltimore Sun
  96. Pearl Harbor
    A brain-dead buddy-movie tearjerker with semi-tasteful romance and tasteful gore mixed in with the derring-do.
    • Baltimore Sun
  97. Our Song
    The movie's triumph is that we experience the ending, in which the three girls go mostly separate ways, not as a defeat but as a transition still open to possibilities.
    • Baltimore Sun
  98. Angel Eyes
    There's a moving, complicated love story at the center of Angel Eyes. It's too bad a peripheral plot line draws attention away from it.
    • Baltimore Sun
  99. Shrek
    A computer-animated burlesque fairy tale that generates more belly laughs than any live-action comedy since "Best in Show."
    • Baltimore Sun
  100. Moulin Rouge!
    It wants to be like no other movie you've ever seen. It's more like every movie you've ever seen.
    • Baltimore Sun
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