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. Another Year
    You may not realize the imprint it has left until its last season comes to a close.
  2. Rabbit Hole
    Mitchell keeps the direction simple and well-behaved, usually just pointing the camera at the speaker, but you can see why this topic appealed to him.
  3. Blue Valentine
    After 30 minutes, I wondered why I was watching a drama about a quarrelsome couple who seemed so obviously wrong for each other. After 60 minutes, I knew. After 90 minutes, I cared. By the end, I was riveted.
  4. The King's Speech
    Polished, thoughtful and touching.
  5. True Grit
    Those of us who admire Charles Portis' novel have waited 40 years for a screen version that's as literal as possible – and the Coen brothers just about deliver it.
  6. Black Swan
    Like all his (Aronofsky) films, it's lurid, visually stimulating, thoughtful, absurd in spots, well-cast and unrelentingly intense.
  7. TRON: Legacy
    A movie's in trouble when neither the hero nor the villain has charisma, and Clu is a dull dog.
  8. Love and Other Drugs
    Gyllenhaal and Hathaway exert considerable powers of hangdog charm and fierce independence, trying to give firm shape to the saggy script. But if you want to watch these two struggle through an up-and-down screen relationship, rent "Brokeback Mountain."
  9. The Tourist
    The Critic's Code of Honor forbids me from explaining in detail why the storytelling is so inept, because I'd have to spoil the silly surprises. So I'll say only this: You can interpret the climax two ways, and both will probably infuriate you.
  10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
    It's grim, funny in one sequence about shapeshifters, vivid in moments of violent action, nearly devoid of plot twists and marked by long patches where Harry, Ron and Hermione camp in the woods or by the sea or near a frozen lake and ponder What It All Means.
  11. Morning Glory
    The acting is so exact and the timing so crisp that it delivers precisely the satisfaction you'd anticipate.
  12. For Colored Girls
    The writer-director waited until he had the clout, budget and prestige to attract a top-flight cast, then turned Colored Girls into a movie with a little less darkness but plenty of heart and guts.
  13. Hereafter
    Damon, trapped in an inert character, shows little inner turmoil.
  14. RED
    One of those rare action comedies that actually delivers action and comedy.
  15. The Social Network
    David Fincher obsesses about obsessive people.
  16. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
    An unmemorable, frenzied, characterless hodgepodge that delights the eyes while numbing the brain.
  17. The Town
    Because the tale is straightforward and conventional, it needed and got terrific acting.
  18. Never Let Me Go
    Anyone who saw the Oscar-nominated Mulligan in "An Education" knows what she can do. If you didn't, you're in for the kind of quietly revelatory acting that portends a brilliant career.
  19. The American
    A slow, grim, atmospheric but virtually plotless look at a blank-faced loner who is obsessed with his work, has no friends except for one woman inexplicably attached to him, and ends up making those around him miserable.
  20. Get Low
    Its main pleasure lies in watching Bush thaw under gentle emotional heat applied by the few people who haven't given up on him.
  21. Salt
    Angelina Jolie is definitely worth her salt as an action hero, but Salt is never worth its Angelina Jolie.
  22. Farewell
    This is a game of numbers, not personalities, and a shrewd man wants the bigger numbers on his side when historians pick up their pens.
  23. Inception
    Nolan’s tale is not only a trip through mental labyrinths but a reminder that memories may cripple us, unless we learn to let them go.
  24. The Kids Are All Right
    I spent The Kids are All Right wondering whether director Lisa Cholodenko was affectionate toward her self-absorbed characters or gently mocking them. In the end, I thought she was both and liked the film more.
  25. Restrepo
    It gives such a down-to-Earth view of the joys, terrors, boredom, anxieties and camaraderie in a war zone.
  26. Toy Story 3
    It’s the first Pixar effort that feels less like a creative outpouring and more like an obligation met to satisfy a distribution schedule.
  27. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
    On the scale of summer action films, this is to the “Transformers” sequel what an Andy Warhol print is to a first-grader’s refrigerator painting.
  28. Shrek Forever After
    There’s nothing much wrong with the film’s pacing or characterizations. We’ve just seen it all in fresher and funnier forms, from Donkey’s sassy backtalk to Puss in Boots’ eye-widening charm.
  29. Robin Hood
    Every era gets the Robin Hood it needs…Now director Ridley Scott and writer Brian Helgeland have given us an intelligent, layered story suited to our grim, patience-trying times.
  30. The Secret in Their Eyes
    To call it a masterpiece is premature: That's a title to be earned only in retrospect. But I've seen it twice now and can't imagine what I would change. It fits together tightly as a suspenseful puzzle, yet it's also emotionally rewarding and sardonically funny.
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