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 point 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. Pay It Forward
    The kind of film you've got to admire simply for the way it squares its shoulders and plunges into a message of unfashionable idealism.
    • Boston Globe
  2. Toys
    It's not only the flattest film in which Williams has appeared; it's also the most anemic Levinson has directed. [18 Dec 1992, p.47]
    • Boston Globe
    • 40 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Jupiter Ascending
    Dazzling to behold yet puny of imagination, the movie takes the “Star Wars” formula — hero myths nicked from Joseph Campbell, cutting-edge visual effects, comic-strip dialogue, goofy-looking aliens — and reduces it to generic Big Box shelf product.
  4. Homefront
    Boston University product Gary Fleder (“Kiss the Girls”) directs the action with grungy efficiency, and the movie does hook us with a certain lurid anticipation of just how far things might escalate.
  5. The 355
    The dialogue is as pedestrian as the plotting is far-fetched.
  6. Saw II
    The product of immaturity. It approaches suffering with a meaninglessness that must be a luxury for anyone who has never lost anyone, or is incapable of empathizing with someone who has.
  7. The Man Who Cried
    The imagery is lush, but the story is pretty cornball, with an ending that can only be called pure Hollywood. Only the marvelous Cate Blanchett transcends stereotype.
    • Boston Globe
  8. Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
    There's nothing really wrong with it -- it's bad, but no worse than it needs to be, which is the problem.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Trouble Every Day
    A success in some sense, but it's hard to like a film so cold and dead.
  10. Man on a Ledge
    You could cast this movie with potato chips and still get cheers when one of the bad guys is cuffed. It doesn't matter that none of it is to be believed.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jack Frost
    The most amazing thing about Jack Frost may be that it took four writers to come up with a film as insubstantial as tinsel and as leaden as fruitcake. Then again, perhaps none of the writers wanted to bear the blame alone. [12 Dec 1998, p.C4]
    • Boston Globe
  12. A Kiss Before Dying
    A Kiss Before Dying is another failed remake, never approaching the claustrophobic pressure of the far grittier and more highly charged 1956 version with Robert Wagner, Joanne Woodward and Mary Astor. [26 Apr 1991, p.72]
    • Boston Globe
    • 40 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Porky's
    Unfortunately, except for one raucous routine, this "Animal House" clone is an overblown, over-publicized, overwrought exploitation flick that's about as funny as the first dirty joke my father told me. [09 Apr 1982]
    • Boston Globe
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Day the Earth Stood Still
    Something has been lost in the translation, and it's not just the script.
  15. Duets
    Hits mostly flat notes, then a few really sour ones.
    • Boston Globe
  16. The Cell
    Many of the film's images will prove more than some viewers can take.
    • Boston Globe
  17. Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
    I wish I could say there is something pleasurable in watching John Goodman reminisce about the good old days while impaled on a steering wheel in the Volvo he's crashed on a California freeway, but I can't find what it is.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Peaceful Warrior
    The film's biggest miracle is the straight face Nick Nolte maintains in his role as Socrates.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Butter
    Butter dearly wants to be a hot-button social satire that plays rough with sacred cows: Midwestern power-moms, the religious right, race, sex, you name it. Mostly, it wants to be an Alexander Payne movie from the 1990s. "Citizen Ruth," say, or "Election." Instead, it's a shrill, cartoonish mess.
  20. Beastly
    The characterization couldn't be more flagrant if the soundtrack creaked out an oldie by a certain ancient pop quintet: You're a candy girl.
  21. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
    "Wolverine" feels enslaved to its many masters - Marvel Comics, Hollywood, and the young men who devour their products - never sidestepping the déjà vu it inspires.
  22. Brick Mansions
    The thematic stuff, while well-intentioned, is also clunky, and ultimately beside the point. Action, obviously, is what you’re after.
  23. Aftermath
    By the movie’s end, viewers will have had a soul-searing brush with the unthinkable that far exceeds any real horror film of recent memory, and surpasses in its impact more traditional features and documentaries about the subject.
  24. Green Lantern
    The film is remarkably stunted.
  25. Angel Eyes
    Lopez is not yet the actor Caviezel is. Still, she fills her performance with conviction, does a couple of her own stunts, and has enough star presence to fill the big screen.
    • Boston Globe
  26. The Change-Up
    If I must watch two men not be gay together for the 300th time this summer, those men should be Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds.
  27. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
    Director Thor Freudenthal (“Diary of a Wimpy Kid”) finds his groove with a succession of flashy 3-D renderings... They’re digitized riffs on the Sarlacc pit from “Star Wars” and the finale of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — but as with the “Potter” cribbing, when it’s done well, it encourages “Percy” audiences to forgive the derivative chunks and thin emotion.
  28. Swing Kids
    It's amazingly suspenseless and devoid of substance. [05 Mar 1993]
    • Boston Globe
    • 39 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Dark Places
    Grim, ridiculous, and dull.
  30. Fame
    It’s not a good sign when the first few minutes of a movie about singing, dancing, rapping, video-camera-wielding teenagers reminds you of a certain grimy horror franchise.
  31. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
    Bland though it is, "Havana Nights" could be the start of a globe-bettering franchise -- and across history, too: "Dirty Dancing: Monticello Mornings"; "Dirty Dancing: Gaza Strip Afternoons."
    • 39 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Ciao America
    Eventually blossoms into a snappy piece about understanding yourself by listening to the personal triumphs and defeats of the past.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Dead Man Down
    Before this urban revenge melodrama falls apart in a clatter of plot absurdities and pretensions, it has its loopy charms.
  34. Captain Ron
    Captain Ron is an inconsequential but inoffensive little comedy dedicated to the proposition that inheriting Clark Gable's yacht can be a real problem. A throwback to the plastic Disney family comedies of the late '50s and early '60s, it's at least trim and shipshape, if never inspired or original. [18 Sep 1992, p.56]
    • Boston Globe
  35. About My Father
    I admire Maniscalco’s decision to make his character the butt of the jokes, literally and figuratively. If only the jokes were funny. He has zero romantic chemistry with Bibb, who appears to be acting in another movie entirely, but he and De Niro make a credible father and son.
  36. Consenting Adults
    The real problem is a script from hell - or at least one of the dingier suburbs of limbo. Some scripts are beyond belief. This one is beneath it. [16 Oct 1992, p.48]
    • Boston Globe
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Clash of the Titans
    The results are -- there’s no other word for it -- a disaster.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Irene in Time
    Irene in Time is the initial first-run feature to debut at the Stuart Street Playhouse, Boston’s newest art house cinema. Both the theater and its audiences deserve much better.
  39. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
    You put up the cash, the movie clunks.
  40. Why Him?
    A James Franco-Bryan Cranston teaming that’s not as wild as intended, but reasonably diverting just the same.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Green Hornet
    It's off-putting, rude, misshapen, and more often than not hysterically funny. The second half, sadly, is an ear-splitting train wreck.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Wedding Weekend
    The dialogue is brightly self-conscious, and sometimes it clicks. Just as often it curdles into an entitled whining.
  43. St. Trinian's
    Sadly, the movie is a zoo.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Just a Kiss
    It's coherent, well shot, and tartly acted, but it wears you down like a dinner guest showing off his doctorate.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Bringing Down the House
    There are about 15 minutes of genuine, bust-a-gut comedy in Bringing Down the House, and, surprisingly, they belong to Steve Martin, who hasn't been funny on film in years.
  46. Bait
    Bait ends up seeming pretty wormy.
    • Boston Globe
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Need For Speed
    All that’s missing is Clyde the orangutan from Clint Eastwood’s “Every Which Way But Loose,” which, trust me, this movie could have used.
  48. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
    What starts as a modest, agreeable riff on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale — and, more relevantly, Tchaikovsky’s ballet — eventually veers into stultifying action, rote twists, and other badly forced contemporary tweaks.
  49. Nights in Rodanthe
    Once a hurricane blows Gere and Lane into each other's arms, all the director's tasteful style and good sense turn into mush. Given the material, I suppose it has to.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Life as We Know It
    Life as We Know It gives bland and predictable a good name.
  51. Zaytoun
    A scene between Yoni and Fahed in the pilot’s makeshift holding cell is a microcosm of everything that’s right about the movie, and not quite right.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Queen of the Desert
    In no way, shape, or fashion does Queen of the Desert qualify as a good movie, but for fans of Werner Herzog — those of us who have followed cinema’s Teutonic imp of the perverse since the 1970s, when he was staging all-dwarf fables and sending conquistadors across mountains — it is fascinating and something close to a must-see.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Edge of Love
    A "great poet" movie, the poet in this case being Dylan Thomas, and it's utter bollocks.
  54. Aftershock
    Though offering some chilling twists on the usual conventions, employing wit and restraint where otherwise the filmmakers might have relied on the contents of an abattoir, Aftershock is ultimately predictable in its litany of who lives and who dies, and doesn’t try to be too ironic or self-reflexive about it.
  55. Flashdance
    Flashdance makes liberal use of jump cuts, strobe lighting and hard-edged, post-punk chic in its dance sequences, it registers as the end product of energy being released by an essentially lyrical temperament. It charms us, makes us want to refrain from scrutinizing it too closely. [31 Jul 1983, p.1]
    • Boston Globe
  56. The Greatest Beer Run Ever
    Perhaps the biggest problem with Beer Run is tonal haphazardness. Sometimes it’s meant to be funny — other times serious — other times even solemn. (Alternate title: “Chickie Learns About the Horrors of War.”) The few jokes that are clearly intentional tend to fall flat.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Provoked: A True Story
    There's an interesting movie in here, too, about the isolation of Indian brides brought to a new country by strange new husbands and mistreated, but Provoked rarely ducks below its glossy surface to go there.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Alvin and the Chipmunks
    Like most family movies these days, "Alvin" is torn between the glitz that sells and the homilies that endure. It's a load of Ting Tang Wallet-Wallet Bling Blang.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Man of the Year
    One walks out of Man of the Year aching for the squandered opportunities.
  60. The Bodyguard
    The Bodyguard is a misfire. It's one of those perplexing but complete failures where all the ingredients show up, but somehow manage never to jell into anything convincing. [25 Nov 1992, p.35]
    • Boston Globe
  61. Here
    Couple the broad acting and cliché-ridden screenplay with the fixed-frame format, and “Here” comes off like a bad sitcom, or even worse, a school play made by a bunch of fifth-graders who decided to tackle Eugene O’Neill or “Death of a Salesman.”
  62. Never Back Down
    The movie is just a cheesy, preposterous, semi-eroticized way of yelling, "Fight! Fight!," when two people go at it in the school cafeteria.
  63. Just Like a Woman
    What might have proven an illuminating perspective on familiar issues disappoints as Bouchareb fails to turn his outsider’s point of view into new insights, and instead takes the easy route, falling back on familiar stereotypes in his tour of US misogyny and xenophobia.
  64. The Exorcist: Believer
    Far too much of this movie is a replay of scenes and plot elements that Friedkin’s film did better, and without CGI. The anticipated head-spinning and pea-soup vomit were far more effective with practical effects.
  65. Dot the I
    A deplorable piece of cynicism whose only point of interest is Gael Garcia Bernal's accent
  66. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
    Looks like something stubbed out in an ashtray.
  67. Virtuosity
    Virtuosity doesn't really compute, but there's going to be more of its kind of cyberaction, not less. [4 Aug 1995, pg. 51]
    • Boston Globe
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Chick Fight
    Both writer and director are men, which perhaps explains why much of the talk in Chick Fight about female empowerment and channeling one’s womanly rage comes off as lip service on the way to the next beat-down or snuggle-up.
  69. Resident Evil: Retribution
    Funny about retribution, though - it's a tricky thing to make time for when you've still got mutant zombie hordes after you. The real premise turns out to be a busy rehash of the first movie's story line.
  70. The Gunman
    Has there been a more tormented or intense study of the ambivalence of revenge than Penn’s performance in Eastwood’s “Mystic River” (2003)? Penn might not agree with Eastwood’s politics, but when it comes to probing a killer’s soul he couldn’t find a better model.
  71. Daddy Day Care
    The Daddy Day Care business model appears to be the 1983 Michael Keaton vehicle ''Mr. Mom,'' put on an unstoppable sugar high.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    World Traveler
    The real seduction Crudup pulls off is that he makes it seem possible that the character hasn't actually done all of these awful things.
    • Boston Globe
  73. When Will I Be Loved
    Most atrocious movies build into their badness, as lacks of talent, ideas, self-confidence, or a total hatred of an audience, are revealed. This one gets it out of the way up front and never looks back.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Legendary
    You'll come away from Legendary with no sense of what amateur wrestling is about.
  75. Final Destination
    Starts by cheating death and ends by cheating us.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Other Woman
    One of those loud, cringe-y female-empowerment comedies that feels like it was made by people who hate women.
  77. But I'm a Cheerleader
    It's a lame and painfully overextended satire of homophobia.
    • Boston Globe
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Sitter
    The Sitter pushes the envelope with such sloppy gusto that you have to give in occasionally, and its comic timing finds its rhythm about every fifth joke.
    • 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.
  80. 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.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    O Jerusalem
    Alas, it aspires to be an epic drama but suffers from an acute identity crisis: It can't decide if it wants to be history, drama, or a cry for peace in the Mideast.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Arthur and the Invisibles
    Watching Arthur and the Invisibles is like sticking your head in a Gallic pinball machine: It's hectic, technically impressive, and your skull starts to pound after a while.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Justin Bieber's Believe
    Where Bieber’s first concert documentary, 2011’s “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” chronicled his rise to fame, his new one is damage control.
  84. P.S. I Love You
    Blithely inept.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Annie
    Producer Ray Stark and director John Huston have relied more on the rigid style of the comic strip than on the high-steppin' pizazz of the Broadway show. They've transformed a big-hearted hit that won seven Tonys into a small- minded musical. [18 Jun 1982]
    • Boston Globe
  86. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
    Much as Bardem enlivens things, the real source of zip is Kaya Scodelario (“Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials”). Charming and spirited, she’s Daisy Ridley dialed up a notch.
  87. Vincent Wants to Sea
    This is a bright, broad, silly, harmless movie whose sweetness is a means to an end.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dear Evan Hansen
    Director Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wonder) and screenwriter Steven Levenson work the levers of emotional manipulation so vigorously, and with so little finesse, that it’s hard to get truly invested in either Evan’s pain or his self-created dilemma.
  89. 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.
  90. Fat Albert
    In the end, it's hard to see a real reason for the movie's existence. We already have Muppets.
  91. Michael
    Director Antoine Fuqua traffics in fan service of the highest order and the lowest quality. This is nothing more than a 127-minute series of poorly executed recreations of milestones in Jackson’s life.
  92. Exit Wounds
    Its pile-driving succession of set pieces comes at you with numbingly relentless efficiency, presumably in the hope that you won't notice or care how dumb it all is.
    • Boston Globe
    • 39 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Reign of Fire
    This is quite enjoyable as creature features go, and Bale continues to demonstrate his curious under-the-radar appeal. As for McConaughey, let's just say a star is reborn. Suddenly that whole naked-bongo-playing incident makes a lot more sense.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Woodshock
    A woozy, wheezy impressionistic take on a woman’s nervous breakdown that aspires to the avant-garde but plays like a bad head-trip movie from the late 1960s. It’s dreadful. Worse, it’s not quite bad enough to be much fun.
  95. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
    For all her “Clueless” comedy cred, Silverstone just might be at her best conveying a mother’s special knack for witheringly guilting her boys.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Planet 51
    Young children and adults with high pain thresholds will enjoy the movie during its brief pause on the way to your On Demand menu.
  97. Underworld: Awakening
    A sequel seemingly eager to assert that monster mashes are about B-movie chills not "Twilight'' melodrama. Eager to a fault, ultimately.
  98. Planes
    Planes has some wonderfully goofy, even ineffable, touches.
  99. Till Human Voices Wake Us
    Despite being well acted and sweetly moving when it strips down to the tender poem at its heart, Till Human Voices Wake Us spends too much time playing to an otherworldly suspense that simply isn't there.
  100. The Lucky One
    Seeing her (Schilling) and Efron fumble at each other is like watching a stick of butter and a bag of flour not turn into a cake.
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