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. The Lawnmower Man
    Mostly plays like an artificial stupidity experiment. Zappy visuals aside, it's essentially a reactionary take on science, stemming from the movies' traditional belief that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a lot of knowledge is worse. Think of it as Faust Goes to the Lab, with an ambitious doc serving as Mephistopheles. [6 Mar 1992, p.30]
    • Boston Globe
  2. Renegades
    There's talent on view in Renegades, even if it's mostly subordinated to formula and marketing imperatives. [02 Jun 1989, p.33]
    • Boston Globe
  3. Burnt
    Cooper swaggers as convincingly as always, the food-prep montages are mesmerizing, and we even get a couple of solid twists and an education on the sous-vide trend.
  4. Two Weeks Notice
    Lawrence just leans on Grant and Bullock, who could have done a movie this breezy from the set of their next one -- where, presumably, Bullock will be playing Medea.
  5. Psycho Beach Party
    A little Hitchcock and some good Psycho fun at the beach.
  6. Jurassic Park III
    What makes it worth sitting through is the chance it offers to catch up on the technical advances since the last installment.
  7. The 13th Warrior
    About everything is big in The 13th Warrior except the writing, which is microscopic.
    • Boston Globe
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Wild Mountain Thyme
    Wild Mountain Thyme is not a good movie. Rather, it’s one that believes so deeply and joyously in its potted romantic Oirishness that the audience doesn’t have to.
  9. Against All Odds
    It begins promisingly.... But the film has no center, succumbs to drift, and gets away from Hackford. [03 Mar 1984]
    • Boston Globe
  10. Stargate
    It works not because ridiculousness is concealed, but because ridiculousness on this scale becomes something else. Don't let anyone tell you that Stargate, lifeless script and all, isn't clunky fun, proudly trembling on the brink of classic camp. [28 Oct 1994, p.48]
    • Boston Globe
  11. Parker
    The best we get here are modest action diversions.
  12. Taking Care of Business
    Taking Care of Business could be a lot worse. It's a swift, if entirely predictable, identity-switch movie that wastes little time on the way to its morality play conclusion. [17 Aug 1990, p.36p]
    • Boston Globe
  13. 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.
  14. Mighty Fine
    Chazz Palminteri's the best thing in the movie. He now has the look of a slightly beefier Steve Buscemi. But where Buscemi is all nerves on edge and something bad waiting to happen, Palminteri has a winning ease.
  15. Bicentennial Man
    Few actors apart from Williams could bring it off.
  16. The Event
    Dukakis gets off some of the film's best lines and keeps the worst from sinking the whole affair; Polley's role is limited, but her character's audition for a feminine hygiene commercial is by far the best thing here.
  17. The Affair of the Necklace
    Larceny at its most labored.
    • Boston Globe
  18. The Stepford Wives
    It's hilarious -- and on purpose, too. This is the first satisfying adult summer comedy set in New England to come out of Hollywood since "The Witches of Eastwick" in 1987.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Austenland
    Hess has made a classic rookie director mistake: Any spoof has to be at least as smart as the thing it’s spoofing, and this one’s twice as dumb.
  20. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
    What I found more disturbing was the casual misogyny of the convoluted story line.
  21. For Love or Money
    Michael J. Fox seems a lot breezier and smarter than what's surrounding him in For Love or Money. It's an old-fashioned romantic comedy that's a little too old-fashioned as it clanks through its plot. [1 Oct 1993, p.52]
    • Boston Globe
  22. A Journal for Jordan
    Journal is Canedy’s story, but it’s Michael B. Jordan’s movie. Stalwart, quietly forceful, he seems positively . . . Denzelian.
  23. The Bucket List
    In The Bucket List, Nicholson is human-ish. And Freeman is so human.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Mystery Team
    Mystery Team is a guilty pleasure - a deeply dumb movie made by pretty smart people.
  25. The Family
    Not known for subtlety, Besson gets the expected laughs, and then some. He also exercises an unwonted finesse, not only with the allusions, but also with variations on the “f” word that, if not poetic, are at least funny.
  26. Crooked Arrows
    The story is unique and engaging enough to transcend the uplifting sports-underdog formula.
  27. Fred Claus
    Fred Claus sells you something you didn't know you wanted: a Vince Vaughn Christmas movie. Vaughn is not the hook. Neither is the holiday. The script, by Dan Fogelman, is smarter than that.
  28. From Paris with Love
    This is the sort of asinine action exercise that needs a star to blow up cars and leap from rooftop to rooftop with gusto.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Trapped
    Bacon makes an appropriately detestable villain; unfortunately, he's the most interesting character here. As for Love, well, this puts her one career rung closer to ''Hollywood Squares.''
  30. Underworld
    As murky and derivative-looking as the film is, it moves with an authority that pummels you into submission.
  31. Queen of the Lot
    It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a movie, and the closest Jaglom has come to brilliant satire. It also explains why this woman is just chatting on a countertop and not Jay Leno's couch.
  32. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
    He concocts a climactic war that flattens downtown Chicago. Bay is such a little boy's director. You know he picked that city because it's the one with the best rock-'em-sock-'em street names. Wacker! Wabash!
  33. Crazy People
    Although Crazy People would have been snappy fun in the '30s, or really wacky in the hands of a Preston Sturges in the '40s, it's pretty flaccid and pedestrian in Tony Bill's hands, not crazy enough. Still, it's on to something with those parodies. [11 Apr 1990, p.43]
    • Boston Globe
  34. Leave It to Beaver
    The humor in Leave It to Beaver is doggedly bland, with a conventional story line that's no more inventive than watching four episodes of the TV show scrunched together and interwoven. [22 Aug 1997, p.F6]
    • Boston Globe
  35. Jungle 2 Jungle
    Jungle 2 Jungle is surprisingly bearable. [07 Mar 1997, p.D5]
    • Boston Globe
  36. Madea's Witness Protection
    Reviewing a Tyler Perry movie is a bit like reviewing the weather report. People who want to watch it are going to do so, regardless of what anyone says about it. And that's not even factoring in Charlie Sheen.
  37. The Haunting
    By placing all its faith in production design and high-powered computerized effects, and not enough where it really matters, namely character and atmosphere, The Haunting relegates itself to the slag heap of embarrassing claptrap. [23 July 1999, p.D4]
    • Boston Globe
  38. The Perfect Game
    Much like a Sox starter struggling for the first couple of innings before settling down, The Perfect Game takes a while to get to the parts worth cheering.
  39. Along Came a Spider
    Efficient, but in the end quite pedestrian.
    • Boston Globe
    • 42 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
    It's bigger, noisier, shinier, and dumber, and it has no earthly reason to exist.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Aliens in the Attic
    Aliens in the Attic is conveyor-belt family product, an action/adventure/sci-fi/comedy made from the bland corporate DNA of Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. It appears designed for families who never leave the mall.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
    A pox upon history and an insult to the 16th president of the United States. It's that, of course - actually, that's the point - but this joyless, deafening cinematic headache commits a different crime. It's a sin against entertainment.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Orphan
    The best part of Orphan is the outstandingly lunatic plot twist that kicks in just as you're checking your watch and hoping they'll wrap things up. This development - I'd love to tell you, but you wouldn't believe me - boosts the movie into overdrive for a final 20 minutes of happy, disreputable mayhem.
  44. RoboCop 2
    RoboCop 2 isn't brain-dead, and perhaps that should be enough in this summer of pummeling sequels. But it isn't. Not in an action movie. [22 June 1990, p.43p]
    • Boston Globe
  45. The Last House on the Left
    Like the current hit "Taken," Last House 2009 packs a vicarious jolt that might feel cathartic to certain moviegoers.
  46. Persuasion
    The solid cast cements over the more noticeable cracks in the story. The result is a pleasant diversion that’s worth a rental.
  47. Fire in the Sky
    Fire in the Sky, the latest abducted-by-aliens movie, is no Close Encounters. It's hardly any encounter at all. [13 Mar 1993, p.10]
    • Boston Globe
  48. Next
    A watchably absurd popcorn flick about a man who can see two minutes into the future.
  49. High Tension
    The horrible anticipation he [Aja] builds is derailed by a gimmick that makes the twist in, say, ''Fight Club" seem perfectly logical. To say more would be to ruin the movie, and why should I do that when its own makers have done it for you?
    • 42 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Take Me Home Tonight
    Completely unoriginal, sure, but watchable and even likable.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Bel Ami
    Robert Pattinson isn't all that bad in Bel Ami. He just isn't right.
  52. Jem and the Holograms
    To Chu’s credit, he does work hard not only to legitimize 30-somethings’ halcyon recollections, but also to make the material relevant to a new generation.
  53. Breakfast of Champions
    Consumerism is running more amok than ever, but this satire of it isn't.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Barnyard
    Speaking as both a parent and a critic, I do believe I'd rather drive rusty railroad spikes through my eyes than have to sit through one more computer generated family film about talking animals. The bad news for Hollywood is that after seeing Barnyard my kids feel the same way.
  55. Arthur Newman
    The closest most people will get to that state of existential freedom is watching actors in a movie about it, and the pleasure usually comes with a price — a reminder that identity, though arbitrary, is also inescapable. In movies like Dante Ariola’s debut feature, Arthur Newman, so, too, are the cliches and platitudes.
  56. PCU
    There's about one TV commercial's worth of funny gags in PCU a poorly executed one-joker about political correctness on campus...But any laughs quickly become redundant and wear thin, and the uselessly involved plot spirals off into absurdity. [29 Apr 1994, p.49]
    • Boston Globe
  57. Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker
    For kids strung out on Anthony Horowitz's 007-lite adventure series, this maiden adaptation is a pleasant enough diversion from having to flip the pages.
  58. The Loss of Sexual Innocence
    There's no getting around the fact that it's an uneven exercise that shows signs of having gestated too long. [04 Jun 1999]
    • Boston Globe
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Suburbicon
    Suburbicon is George Clooney’s sixth feature as a director and the latest spiral downward in terms of quality.
  60. Courageous
    For all Kendrick's stolidity, he delivers a couple of wrenchingly tender scenes.
  61. Return to Oz
    The Disney people have taken such obvious care in making Return to Oz that it's a shame it didn't turn out better. It has its moments - mostly visual - but when it isn't a grim downer, it's largely inert. [21 Jun 1985, p.21]
    • Boston Globe
    • 41 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
    King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is stupid enough to send you back to the one movie that did the saga right by ripping it to shreds, 1975’s “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
  63. Bubble Boy
    There's always been room for rudeness in humor. In fact, it can be invigorating. But Bubble Boy goes through the motions of being outrageous when all it's really got is a rage to conform to formula.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 12 Critic Score
    Clue
    Clue the movie, not the board game, isn't so much a drama as it is a marketing gimmick. Presumably, Paramount Pictures believed that an audience was clamoring to see actors play one-dimensional figures from a game. [13 Dec 1985, p.57]
    • Boston Globe
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Princess Kaiulani
    It can’t be easy to turn the story of Hawaii’s last royal into a waxworks parade, but writer-director Marc Forby has pulled it off.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Knowing
    Starts off mildly ridiculous, ascends to the full-blown ludicrous, and finally sails boldly off the edge of the absolutely preposterous.
  67. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
    Even by the unambitious standards of some children's movies and many movies that star Caine, this one has a difficult time making a case for itself as anything other than an adventure in baby-sitting.
  68. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
    Forget the metaphors, why not just make a movie about poor, exploited Mexicans?
  69. Larry Crowne
    Larry Crowne isn't a movie for adults. It's a movie for adults who don't like things with screens and keyboards.
  70. John Tucker Must Die
    The movie is as inconsequentially pleasant as its star, and far nicer than the title lets on, too.
  71. Mad Money
    This is the feistiest Hollywood movie about American women and their thankless jobs since "9 to 5."
  72. War of the Buttons
    But when there's such a lighthearted, boys-at-play manner about the story's established aspects, it creates an odd disconnect from the World War II tolerance lessons that the filmmakers seek to add. War and persecution are bad, kids - except when it's all in good fun.
  73. Godzilla 2000
    A ton of fun, and then some.
    • Boston Globe
  74. Next Friday
    The action is mostly witless and predictable. One measure of its desperation and lack of respect for its audience is the frequency with which it labors to wring humor from flatulence and excrement gags.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    What to Expect When You're Expecting
    The writing is sharp and the performances bright, and if you've been through the forced gestational march known as pregnancy, there are knowing laughs to be had. If you haven't, do yourself a favor and stay away.
  76. Black Adam
    All kinds of stuff happens. Much of it is loud, confusing, and badly paced. From a superhero-movie perspective, it’s the last one of those three that’s most problematic. Leaden and flaccid are a bad combination.
  77. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
    How funny that Pryce, a tweedy Brit playing a bad guy, should be the one person doing anything remotely heroic for this dud.
  78. Machete Kills
    Rodriguez does a fair job of keeping the zaniness coming: Vergara’s machine gun bra, Gibson delivering exposition in a “Star Wars” prop, bad guys offed by helicopter blades in dementedly creative ways. It’s enough that you’ll hope Rodriguez makes good on that new faux trailer — for “Machete Kills Again . . . in Space.”
  79. TMNT
    The movie is a serviceable way to pass the time: Kids will cheer the bright colors and funny new words ("Kowabunga!").
  80. Hardware
    The chief trouble with Hardware is that it doesn't seem to contribute anything uniquely its own to the genre, although it works hard dismembering bodies and otherwise crushing and tearing them apart with its circular saw and drill-bit arms after homing in on them with its ruby laser eyes. [14 Sep 1990, p.40p]
    • Boston Globe
  81. Battleship
    If only there were more genuine rah-rah fun involved, instead of just endless, thudding, seen-it-all-before mayhem.
  82. What a Girl Wants
    It's not that What a Girl Wants is dreadful; it's merely slapdash, wildly inconsistent in tone and style, and mind-numbingly predictable in character and plot.
  83. Torque
    Invites you not simply to identify with its low IQ but to cheer it on. This is a movie that knows you know it's dumb, and that's enough to make the whole thing worth tolerating.
  84. Mambo italiano
    No sophisticated dance, but it moves about with an open heart. And hey, it's at least as funny as that Greek thing.
  85. Home Again
    Home “again”? It seems that first-timer Meyers-Shyer isn’t setting so much as a piggy toe beyond familiar territory, and this listless rom-com shows it.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Little Ashes
    The problem is that both Philippa Goslett's script and Paul Morrison's direction lack the stylistic craziness - the sense of real, lunatic danger - a project like this desperately needs.
  87. The Rookie
    There's action aplenty in The Rookie, but director and star Clint Eastwood supplies his tired cop-buddy formula with an oddball tone that lifts it slightly above the genre. [07 Dec 1990, p.53p]
    • Boston Globe
  88. The Purge
    The problem with high concepts like this is cooking up a story and characters to go along with it.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Resident Evil: Extinction
    This version 3.0 needs an upgrade.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Stand Up Guys
    We get it: Stand Up Guys is supposed to be cutesy criminal magic realism. But Stevens, an actor turned director, never finds the right vibe, and the movie's genuinely creepy misogyny sours the attempts to go sentimental in the final act.
  91. Good Burger
    It's a neighborhood comedy for kids that squanders the high energy of a group of young actors on a stubbornly unimaginative script. [25 July 1997, p.C5]
    • Boston Globe
    • 41 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Love Wedding Repeat
    Love Wedding Repeat isn’t more than the sum of its fairly foolproof parts, and it suffers from a leading man who’s likable but who lacks the mad gleam of a true farceur. The rest of the cast pulls their weight.
  93. Ride Along
    Hart’s clowning here is that rare case where louder is, in fact, funnier.
  94. Mr. Woodcock
    The film logs almost all of its laughs when it's at its crudest, meanest, and most unfiltered. Everything else - and that is to say most of the movie - is a big, fat, derivative waste of time.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
    Almost but not quite as obnoxious as its title. Little kids will love it. You’ll need a hazmat suit.
  96. Woman on Top
    A romantic fairy tale that's light and in several ways seductive, if not exactly filling.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Agent Cody Banks
    The premise of Agent Cody Banks is more than a little bizarre.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Meet the Fockers
    What a waste.
  99. Moonfall
    There are moments watching it when you can’t help but think of “Don’t Look Up” (comet, moon, whatever). Honestly, though, “Moonfall” is more fun, even if far less substantial and nowhere near as much talent went into making it.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    La Mujer de Mi Hermano
    An oddly unsexy melodrama in which every supposedly shocking revelation (rape, incest, homosexuality, pedophilia) is treated with the same blithe shrug of recognition. It's numbing, especially with the film's deadly serious mood.
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