Charlotte Observer's Scores

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For 1,652 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 56% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Frost/Nixon
Lowest review score: 0 Waist Deep
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,085 out of 1652
  2. Mixed: 279 out of 1652
  3. Negative: 288 out of 1652
1652 movie reviews
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  1. Chico & Rita
    Every decade or so, someone proves animation can tell a serious adult story.
  2. The Hunger Games
    Where Collins' book paid careful attention to detail, Ross pays far too little. Characters never become exhausted or desperate or gaunt; they don't even get chapped lips or broken nails.
  3. 21 Jump Street
    The movie has entertaining cameos, too, especially one by Holly Robinson Peete. At 23, she played Officer Judy Hoffs on the TV show. At 48, she plays … Officer Judy Hoffs, the oldest undercover cop on Jump Street. Absurd? Of course. But pretty funny, too.
  4. John Carter
    Did anybody expect it to be a metaphor for modern America?
  5. A Separation
    Every time it starts to feel like something we have known, we realize how unlike us these Iranian characters are.
  6. Safe House
    Crash. Kick. Stab. Punch. Talk (briefly). Smash. Chase. Screech. Shoot. Mumble. That's the wearying pattern of Safe House. Had "think" been an action verb, the movie might have risen above the knee-jerk excitement of the second-tier, "Bourne"-style spy thriller. But it never does.
  7. Pina
    Most documentaries put us inside people's heads. The dazzling, experimental Pina puts us inside people's feet.
  8. The Woman in Black
    In rare cases – and The Woman in Black is one of them – a story may be more atmospheric when less is left to the imagination.
  9. The Grey
    At times, the animatronic effects used to create the wolves are too obvious, and the one-by-one kill-off plotline employed in so many horror films gives The Grey a plodding predictability. At nearly two hours, it's also too long.
  10. Albert Nobbs
    Most movies about people passing themselves off as the opposite sex can't sustain the illusion, but "Nobbs" does.
  11. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
    He (Horn) gets so deeply into the whirling mind of Oskar Schell, dominating every scene he's in – which is almost every scene, period – that he lifts the movie out of the realm of "Forrest Gump"-like emotional manipulation.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Iron Lady
    Lloyd finesses a deft script of brisk, quick strokes by Abi Morgan ("Brick Lane," "Shame") into a terrific entertainment.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Contraband
    A thriller with its share of nail-biting moments.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Joyful Noise
    A cheerful, not-quite-off-color crowd-pleaser that rarely breaks formula, it's the big screen equivalent of a sloppy smooch from your over-affectionate aunt over the holidays.
  15. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
    The film requires close attention, especially while it jumps back and forth in time for the first half-hour, but all the pieces lock into place tightly by the end.
  16. The Artist
    Talkies may have killed silent movies, the way TV serials and soap operas wiped out radio dramas. But there are stories most effectively told in the old style, and The Artist is proof.
  17. The Adventures of Tintin
    His (Spielberg) The Adventures of Tintin jettisons character, back story, plot, depth and emotional ties to deliver 100 minutes of beautifully shot mayhem. It's handsome, hectic, heartless and hollow, a shiny Christmas box with nothing but glitter inside.
  18. War Horse
    For certain movies, the adjectives "formulaic" and "predictable" are complimentary. War Horse is one of them.
  19. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    This film has two of Fincher's happiest trademarks: It's full of information and stretches over a remarkably long time (165 minutes), yet it's neither confusing nor overextended.
  20. Young Adult
    It's funny, in a can't-look-away-from-the-train-wreck way, and it's brutally honest. But it's not pretty.
  21. The Descendants
    At bottom, all Payne's films make us smile, often ruefully but hopefully.
  22. Arthur Christmas
    Watching Arthur Christmas is like doing your holiday shopping on Dec. 23: fun and frantic, exciting and maddening.
  23. J. Edgar
    So what's the motivation for the earnest, handsome, well-acted, unenlightening, workaday J. Edgar in 2011?
  24. Anonymous
    Anonymous is fun – if you take the anti-Shakespearean tale as events set in an unreal, alternate universe.
  25. The Dead
    The Fords give us old-fashioned predators: Zombies shuffle slowly, silently, patiently forward, as implacably destructive as Time itself. Meanwhile, the Fords play off our memories from books, TV news and other movies.
  26. The Ides of March
    Ides can't be said to enlighten any but the naive, and it's not likely to shock us into positive political action So what pleasure can we get from this movie? Quite a bit, as it happens.
  27. 50/50
    The filmmakers do everything they can to balance levity and leavening. The subject says "drama," and the three supporting women deliver well-shaded, understated performances. (Howard shows us how weakness can be just as destructive as malice.)
  28. Moneyball
    It's tense, strangely funny in a lot of spots and – if you grew up loving old-fashioned, seat-of-the-pants baseball, as I did – the most depressing movie of the year.
  29. Creature
    Creature is refreshingly and intentionally silly, in an era when horror has devolved mostly into torture porn and high-tech, computer-generated assaults on our senses.
  30. Drive
    Nobody puts the "angst" in "gangster" like a European director. When the director's a Dane, you can count on gloomy, chilly visuals and deliberate pacing. And when the director is Nicolas Winding Refn, who made the "Pusher" series in his native country and "Bronson" in England, you can expect intense, often brutal spurts of violence.
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