Boston Globe's Scores

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For 7,947 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 64
Highest review score: 100 Autumn Tale
Lowest review score: 0 Argylle
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,229 out of 7947
  2. Mixed: 1,553 out of 7947
  3. Negative: 1,165 out of 7947
7947 movie reviews
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  1. Changeling
    As Changeling strains toward its mawkishly optimistic conclusion, the old-fashioned moviemaking that Eastwood settled into doesn't suit either him or his star. It feels like a corny joke.
  2. Roll Bounce
    This nostalgic licorice whip of a movie assumes there's still an audience for a straight-faced, family-friendly salute to the 1970s heyday of competitive roller disco.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Gospel
    A heartfelt but muddled melodrama.
  4. Medicine Man
    With what doubtless are the best intentions, the film wants to do several things, and does. The trouble is that it doesn't do any of them very well. [07 Feb 1992, p.32]
    • Boston Globe
  5. Pulse
    If Pulse is unsurprising as a horror movie (come on: chalky, soul-sucking freaks again?), as a campaign against the Internet, digital piracy, cellphones, and anything that computes anything (like laptops or brains), it's a riot.
  6. The Divine Order
    The chief weakness in the movement, and in the film as well, is Nora herself. Played sweetly by Leuenberger, Nora is endearing but hardly embodies the spirit of her Ibsen namesake.
  7. Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike
    For some, Atlas Shrugged Part II is a ridiculous movie. For others, it's scripture.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Foot Fist Way
    The film itself suggests a sketch video on Ferrell and McKay's "Funny or Die" website, padded out to the dimensions of a character comedy.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Impossible
    An earnest, extremely grueling, prodigiously crafted true-life drama that takes one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history and reduces it to a bad day at Club Med.
  10. Tombstone
    Tombstone is a big Christmas pudding of a neo-Peckinpah Western that doesn't quite hang together and is a bit too self-conscious about its looks. [24 Dec 1993, p.23]
    • Boston Globe
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself
    Wants to be as shocking as its title, but it doesn't have the nerve.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Band Aid
    A clever and heartfelt comedy-drama that remains aloft as long as it retains its sense of humor; when the going gets serious, the dialogue turns therapeutic and heavy. Still, it’s a decent debut and an ambitious attempt to juggle tones.
  13. Hotel Transylvania 2
    For the haters out there, you could see where Sandler reprising his role as a cartoon Dracula in Hotel Transylvania 2 might just be the perfect metaphor: Yep, there he goes again, evilly sucking the lifeblood out of decent entertainment. Now come on, let’s grab the torches!
  14. Infinite Storm
    Not to get all Aristotelian about it, but for a plot to be more than just a succession of incidents, it needs some kind of mindful opposition to the protagonist’s efforts. This “Infinite Storm” lacks.
  15. Ricochet
    If you like your revenge slow and cliched, you may like Ricochet. The plot, which by now may be too stock even for TV police dramas, is about an escaped convict bent on torturing the cop who put him behind bars. [05 Oct 1991, p.10]
    • Boston Globe
  16. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
    Very little of it is as persuasive or enveloping as its beloved English counterpart. But it works very hard to distract 11-year-olds from thinking about the November arrival of “The Deathly Hallows.’’
  17. Taxi
    Too much of Taxi is just tired.
  18. A Good Man in Africa
    A Good Man in Africa has its sensibilities in the right place, and sometimes its wit, too, but its shenanigans can't mask a certain shortfall. [09 Sep 1994, p.53]
    • Boston Globe
  19. Identity
    It's an exasperating exercise in B-movie hokum and screenwriter's gimmickry.
  20. The Lost City
    Sometimes it works — let’s say 12 percent of the time — and The Lost City can actually be deft and imaginative. Unfortunately, that leaves 88 percent which doesn’t.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Patriots Day
    At best, it's unnecessary. At worst, it's vaguely insulting.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Francis Ford Coppola Presents: The Legend of Suriyothai
    The movie is both stunning on the level of visual pageantry and curiously inert as cinema.
  23. Hitler's Children
    The moral weight of Hitler's Children is unmistakable. So is that weight's inertness.
  24. Ghost in the Shell
    Or maybe Major, like Oedipus, is really searching for herself? Do people even have selves? Are identities and souls just a bunch of clichés spun out by teams of screenwriters? If these questions interest you, do yourself a favor and watch the 1995 original movie.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Blade: Trinity
    One of the prime laws of the multiplex states that any action or horror movie series will devolve into ritualized violence, self-mocking camp, and egregious silliness by part three. Blade: Trinity is right on schedule.
  26. The Children Act
    The Children Act isn’t all that interesting a movie, despite the many talented people involved and the generally high level of work they do. The most interesting thing about it is how it presents a case study in the very different way style can determine what works on the screen vs. what works on the page.
  27. All I See Is You
    What emerges from this pretentious if diverting mishmash is a story that is equally predictable and contrived, but nonetheless offers some worthwhile insights into the notion of the male gaze and the subjugation of women.
  28. Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds
    This sequel, with the return of the first movie's insatiably slutty Los Angeles collegians, is as vulgar as its predecessor and just as almost-smart.
  29. Ender's Game
    It comes down to this: Which is more important, the innocence of a child or the survival of the species? And if the race survives, will it just become like the enemy aliens that must be destroyed to do so?
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    On the Run
    This payback-revenge storyline, told mostly at night with minimal dialogue, is tense but familiar, and Bruno's quick-draw costume changes are fun to watch.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Flash of Genius
    The problem with Flash of Genius isn't that the subject is dull but that the movie is.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    One from the Heart (re-release)
    The movie looks great and sounds better, and its status as a pioneering work of cinematic eye candy seems secure. For one thing, it's hard to imagine ''Moulin Rouge'' without it. As a movie about recognizable human beings, however, One From the Heart remains a failure.
  33. Tommy's Honour
    A climactic contest takes place in arctic weather that would rival any New England Patriots playoff game. Had the filmmakers drawn more on this rowdy, hardy spirit, not to mention the hirsute gravitas of Peter Mullan, it might have done justice to its legendary subjects.
  34. Fatal Assistance
    Fatal Assistance has few answers, and adds little clarity.
  35. Ben-Hur
    That Morgan Freeman voice! It’s so rich and full and authoritative that even when he’s telling Judah, “OK, OK,” you almost believe people used that word in the year 33. If they were very progressive.
  36. Passionada
    A cheery version of a darker, grislier movie, one in which people like Daniel beat up people like Charlie, girls like Vicky end up in far more compromising positions, and women like Celia turn to Scotch and prescription drugs to cope with their pain.
  37. Nomad
    The filmmakers don't appear to know what's important, let alone how to pace an epic for big drama and maximum thrills.
  38. Labyrinth of Lies
    Underneath its mea culpas lies a subtext that exonerates the post-Third Reich generations of its past.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Elsa y Fred
    Elsa & Fred does graze against an interesting idea: that the vitality of our youths lives on in the prison of aging bodies.
  40. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
    Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget isn’t a bad movie; it’s just an unnecessary one. Whoever thought audiences would be clamoring for the sequel to a 23-year-old film with such a satisfying ending to its story must have been out of their clucking mind.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
    Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates lopes along with bumptious likability but no real energy, urgency, structure, or wit.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The War with Grandpa
    Not that terrible, but dispiritingly generic — the kind of off-brand, cable-ready product that functions as advertised but could have been cast with anybody other than some of the most unique and celebrated performers of their generations.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Love, Gilda
    With all that good will and with an abundance of source material, why does the documentary Love, Gilda feel like such a disappointment? It’s fine for casual viewers: you’ll come away reasonably satisfied if you want to catch up on the basics of Radner’s life and career while having your nostalgia gently stroked.
  44. Thérèse
    The film looks great, boasting all the elegant period details that are expected in tasteful French adaptations of treasured national literature, with beautifully photographed Bordeaux landscapes and luxurious interiors. As for the human element, however, the mood is more apathetic than tragic.
  45. Quick Change
    As a performer, Murray moves through the film with a lovely doomed aplomb. And his quick verbal wit is almost enough to pull Quick Change off. But as a director, his inexperience costs him. His camera isn't as quick as his tongue. [13 Jul 1990, p.29]
    • Boston Globe
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Book of Eli
    The Book of Eli is “The Road’’ with twice the plot, four times the ammunition, and half the brains; it’ll probably make 10 times the money.
  47. The Tomorrow Man
    Their (Danner/Lithgow) being together feels more like a device — there’d be no movie without their relationship — than it does a romance. There’s a lack of chemistry that makes for a listlessness of narrative.
  48. Breaking Upwards
    The film gets stronger and more involving as the drama gets heavier and the couple’s rift grows.
  49. Bones
    You'll laugh at Bones a lot more often than you'll be scared by it, assuming you'll be scared at all.
    • Boston Globe
  50. Young Woman and the Sea
    The film evokes all of the usual biopic tropes while painting a standard picture of an extraordinary hero.
  51. I Declare War
    Imagination is what these filmmakers could use more of, as their ingenious concept doesn’t develop much beyond a gimmick.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Thor: The Dark World
    Has its moments of visual invention and self-aware humor — mostly when the hero’s trickster brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is around — but otherwise it’s an awkwardly plotted extravaganza.
  53. On_Line
    Weintrob's stylish visuals mimic Web technologies, which succeed in making his characters seem all the more removed from reality. Now if someone would find a way to equip theater seats with a ''delete'' key, we could be rid of them completely.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Duchess of Langeais
    The film's a minuet fetishistically repeated until either the audience or the lovers go crazy. I'd say it was a tie.
  55. Life of the Party
    Thoroughly vanilla comedy, a movie jammed with well-meaning girl power messages but surprisingly little edge.
  56. Underworld: Evolution
    They're still fighting in this sequel. But this is a more visually inspired, muscularly made movie than its predecessor.
  57. And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen...
    Like a Bond picture with no spies or villains or car chases or gadgets or explosions.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Red Road
    The movie trades the paranoia of modern omni-cam culture for a tighter, more personal drama, and while it sticks with you, you feel the missed opportunity like a phantom leg.
  59. Gang Related
    The schizoid Gang Related is too heavy to be light and too light to be heavy. [8 Oct 1997, p.F3]
    • Boston Globe
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Thirteen Ghosts
    A formulaic script, a tired plot -- and uninspired dialogue all point up the real star. It's the house,
    • Boston Globe
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Never Die Alone
    Invites us to both hate King David and admire his style, and there will probably be some hand-wringing about that.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Danny Deckchair
    What you might call conditional whimsy, predicated on the audience overlooking so many plot implausibilities that it might get tuckered out from all the charity.
  63. The Great Buck Howard
    This is an old man's movie, without an old man's experience. Despite McGinly's stated affection for Kreskin (the movie ends with a written appreciation of him), there's nothing personal about it. It's the movie equivalent of handing us a business card.
  64. 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.
  65. The Meddler
    The Meddler is a disappointment after the talent Scafaria demonstrated in her 2012 feature debut “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.”
  66. Assault on Precinct 13
    Disappointing for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's silly. For another, it's not always silly enough to be diverting.
  67. The Skeleton Key
    It has the wild, rancid atmosphere of a garbage bag that a raccoon has ripped open.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    G
    If the movie's not as bad as it sounds, it's not all that great, either.
  69. Ella McCay
    Thankfully, Ella McCay is not as bad as its predecessor. Had this film been a total disaster, it would be easier to dismiss. But every so often, there are glints of the James L. Brooks brilliance I loved so much.
  70. Ghosted
    Rom-com turning into bomb-com (there are lots of explosions) is a funny idea. But since neither the rom-com nor the bomb-com is much to speak of, Ghosted isn’t either.
  71. Escape from Planet Earth
    Colorful as the 3-D aliens-among-us comedy is to look at, though, Corddry is handed a role that’s beige as can be, and so are his castmates.
  72. Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
    Muniz has better secret-agent toys to play with, funnier lines and sidekicks helping him out, and a bit more discerning director in Kevin Allen ("The Big Tease").
  73. Dancing Across Borders
    Well-meant though it may be, the movie has an advertorial gloss.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Project Power
    Project Power is the kind of action/sci-fi bone-cruncher where the cast is better than the material, the characters are more interesting than the premise, and the dialogue chugs along in the middle. It’s on Netflix and is worth a few hours if you’re in a B-movie state of mind.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Tammy
    It just plonks down the actress and a handful of stellar co-stars without much in the way of a script, storyline, or actual jokes. Yet you may still come out with a smile on your face. It’s very odd.
  76. Bait
    Bait ends up seeming pretty wormy.
    • Boston Globe
  77. The Penguin Lessons
    The Penguin Lessons severely falters when it deals with the dangers of military occupation. It’s hard to watch a serious subplot involving people being “disappeared” by the government juxtaposed with scenes of cutesy penguin mayhem and classroom hijinks.
  78. Eye of the Beholder
    Never brings its potentially intriguing plot strands into focus.
  79. The Equalizer 2
    Save for a couple of crisp standalone segments incorporated as tone-setters, Washington’s first-ever sequel is a narratively and visually muddled disappointment, one that regularly confuses numbing brutality with vicariously thrilling righteous vengeance.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Bomb the System
    Visually dazzling and dramatically trite -- it's virtuoso piffle.
  81. An Unfinished Life
    Like most of Hallström's Hollywood movies ("The Cider House Rules," "Chocolat"), this one is excruciatingly tasteful.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    mother!
    With mother!, Aronofsky throws caution to the winds and delivers his most abstract cinematic experience yet. It’s also arguably his worst.
  83. Aurora Borealis
    An unremarkable comedy-drama.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Unforeseen
    The film's case against overdevelopment needs to be, and could be, aggressive, airtight. It should play to the unconverted. Instead, The Unforeseen gives us . . . poetry.
  85. Jack Reacher
    This movie is the height of by-the-book dullness.
  86. The Comfort of Strangers
    The Comfort of Strangers seldom makes sense, and the bizarre behavior often seems arbitrarily trowled on from the outside as opposed to something bubbling up from within. The best that can be said for it is that its maze-like ways at times intriguingly replicate the mazelike streets of Venice [12 Apr 1991, p.82]
    • Boston Globe
  87. Take the Lead
    The movie partners all the cliches of the inner-city school drama with the cliches of the dance instructional, and the two keep stomping on each other's toes.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Quarry
    Watching Shea Whigham and Michael Shannon in The Quarry is like watching two highly qualified surgeons try to jolt a comatose patient back to life. They get the limbs twitching nicely, but the heart never turns over and starts running.
  89. Olympus Has Fallen
    Butler serves the cause well, considering. Think that cause is a thankless one? Shhh, don’t tell Secret Service agent Channing Tatum or president Jamie Foxx, headed your way in June with, yes, “White House Down.”
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Machinist
    The main, if not only, reason to see The Machinist is for Christian Bale's title performance, and even then you have to be a fan of hardcore martyrdom in the service of craft.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Quiet One
    The movie is congenial, self-effacing, and reasonably dull, and since it promises an inside look at 30 years of being a Rolling Stone, that has to be considered a disappointment. On the other hand, Oliver Murray’s film about the life and times of Bill Wyman offers proof that even average blokes can be rock stars, and maybe more of them than we think.
  92. Madea's Family Reunion
    Perry is a playwright, and his dialogue here is usually entertaining.
  93. The Sentinel
    The Sentinel isn't an entire season of ''24" smushed into a bland two hours of movie? Does Kiefer Sutherland know?
  94. And Then We Danced
    The best thing about Akin’s film is the dance stuff. The movie begins with arresting black-and-white archival footage of Georgian dancing. The rehearsals in the dance studio come alive, thanks in no small part to the drum-and-accordion accompaniment. Kinetically, the style of dance is percussive and assertive. It doesn’t so much flow as boil.
  95. Balloon
    Balloon manages to combine slickness and sentimentality, predictability and implausibility. The fact that it’s based on a true story — the closing credits include photographs of the actual families — does not make up for the amassing of red herrings, close calls, and occasions for head-scratching.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Public Enemies
    The parts, in other words, promise a brilliant whole. So why is this movie one of the signal disappointments of the year? You have to go back to the basics: Public Enemies has everything going for it except a reason and a script.
  97. Lucky Break
    The movie moves predictably to its formulaic finale, which -- unwittingly perhaps -- reprises Plummer's own sugary classic, ''The Sound of Music.''
  98. Amos & Andrew
    Appealing as he can be at playing loose cannons, however, Cage can only go so far before being mired in a script that generates stereotypes as quickly as it thinks it's knocking them down. [05 Mar 1993, p.64]
    • Boston Globe
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
    Carell's performance is enjoyable but safe, and while he and Knightley play well enough together, there's no genuine chemistry - no zap to convince us these two deserve to be the last lovers on Earth.
  100. Been Rich All My Life
    A so-so documentary about another fascinating, underreported piece of Harlem history.
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