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. The X Files: I Want to Believe
    We waited 10 years for a sequel to the movie version of "The X-Files" – and the best Chris Carter could do is The X-Files: I Want to Believe?
  2. Brideshead Revisited
    Often powerful, though presented throughout with British understatement.
  3. Man on Wire
    Wallenda once said, "Life is being on the wire; everything else is just waiting." This film makes that motto ring true.
  4. The Dark Knight
    Succeeds as an action film, character study and metaphor for our own terrorism-obsessed time.
  5. Mamma Mia!
    The chorus backs the soloists powerfully, and they are as fresh as the rest of the film: fat and fit, homely and handsome, young gods and old codgers – in short, people you might really see in Greece. Reality in a musical? That alone makes it worth your open-eared attention.
  6. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
    Fanboys won't mind the absence of depth or emotion; they may even welcome it for making the film more representative of its comic-book origins. The rest of us, however, cannot rejoice at the overspending and overkill likely to come in Hellboy III.
  7. Journey to the Center of the Earth
    So the science in this film of Jules Verne's science fiction classic is ludicrous. Well, how's the fiction? Not terrible.
  8. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
    So I was curious to see why we needed a two-hour documentary about the three-hit wonder who cast away his career halfway through life and coasted on celebrity status for 30 years. After seeing Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, I'm still not convinced we do.
  9. Hancock
    One of the rare action films that needed to be longer. Then changes in mood wouldn't be so abrupt, and director Peter Berg and writers Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan would've had more time to reveal things we want to know.
  10. Tell No One
    The result is one of the twistiest thrillers in recent memory.
  11. WALL-E
    A potent environmental message wrapped up in an irresistibly cute romance between robots.
  12. Wanted
    His movies are thrilling and ridiculous in equal measure, and I often laughed with incredulous approval as he wreaked havoc.
  13. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
    Has its heart in the right place and its head shoved well down into a box of clichés.
  14. The Happening
    It's neither dull nor stimulating, neither off-putting nor engaging.
  15. The Incredible Hulk
    Edward Norton's a more evocative actor than Eric Bana, and he supplies all the emotions required by Leterrier and writer Zak Penn.
  16. Beauty in Trouble
    What director Jan Hrebejk and writer Petr Jarchovský are talking about is the Czech Republic, ravaged for decades by communism and then left to fend for itself in a world to which it can scarcely adjust.
  17. Kung Fu Panda
    The voice cast includes Angelina Jolie as a tigress, omnipresent Seth Rogen as an acupuncturist who's a praying mantis, David Cross as a nasal crane and Lucy Liu as a cheerful viper.
  18. You Don't Mess with the Zohan
    Sandler proves even a hardened Israeli secret service agent can be an imbecilic juvenile.
  19. Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan
    Proves eye-opening in two ways: Sweeping, bloody battles will make your orbs pop, and you'll re-evaluate this supposedly “uncivilized” man who unified quarrelsome Central Asian tribes to create one of the largest empires in history.
  20. Savage Grace
    Part of the film's failure to arouse real horror is the languid direction; not enough seems to be at stake emotionally.
  21. Sex and the City
    As a film, it's flabby and utterly predictable.
  22. The Strangers
    Bertino directs at a funereal pace. Speedman remains comatose, though Tyler flickers fitfully to life. The mournful look on her face suggests she's remembering the days when she was given more psychologically complex scripts, such as "Armageddon."
  23. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
    Both the good and bad remind us that the most special thing about "Skull" is the man wearing the fedora and the rakish grin. He has never worn out his welcome, and this valedictory – it can be nothing else – is a fitting one.
  24. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
    Is it a bad thing that Disney has commercialized, denatured and inflated the story to make it indistinguishable from any handsome sword-and-sorcery epic? Perhaps not, for it IS handsome on its grand scale.
  25. Speed Racer
    Speed Racer is chaotic as a six-ring circus, gaudy as a transvestites convention and soullessly cute as a robot puppy.
  26. Iron Man
    A brain-free ride on a cinematic bullet train.
  27. Son of Rambow
    An endearing, well-acted trifle with lovely intentions.
  28. Baby Mama
    It's the chemistry between the stars that makes the film stand out in a drab spring.
  29. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
    It can devote itself entirely to bodily functions or, having established its grossness quotient, take the high road toward satire like its 2004 predecessor, "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." It fails mainly because it does neither.
  30. Roman de gare
    The film's not really a whodunit or even a whoizzit, so learning his identity matters less than what happens after he reveals it. The film becomes truly French in its attitudes toward thwarted ambition and emotion, right down to an ending that may strike Americans as melodramatic.
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