CNN's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 607 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 42% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 61
Highest review score: 100 Come from Away
Lowest review score: 20 Dolittle
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 44 out of 607
607 movie reviews
  1. Call it what you will, but this Chris Farley-David Spade re-teaming might as easily be dubbed "Tommy Boy 2," with a slightly less satisfying mix of broad physical gags and bodily function humor. Riding the recent wave of stupid cinema, Paramount figures to shear off good business among undemanding teen audiences with this fitfully funny entry, seemingly crafted for people who find the new "Saturday Night Live" too intellectually challenging.
  2. Granted, Scoob! appears more into recycling than reinvention -- it's more a snack than a meal -- but it does endeavor to make an old concept fresh and cool again in children's eyes. That might answer the question why the movie exists, but based on the results, nothing here merits an exclamation point.
  3. Who's a good movie? Not "DC League of Super-Pets," a big colorful idea that proves promising in theory -- tailor-made for a two-minute trailer -- but a rather tedious slog as a full-length animated film.
  4. Ultimately, Madame Web might have sounded like an interesting experiment, and it sort of is, but the execution feels less like a fully realized film than an extended prologue for a movie to come.
  5. The Goldfinch has a painting at its center, but despite a classy palette of ingredients conjures a lifeless, disjointed picture. Adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the movie represents a transparent bid to bring the book's prestige to the screen, but it's another case of literary underpinnings being lost in translation.
  6. A simple-minded strain of giant-robot combat. Much in need of a script tune-up, it’s a less-than-meets-the-eye summer-movie machine, and not a particularly well-oiled one.
  7. "Elvis” has entered the theaters, but in a package that often recalls the excesses associated with his Vegas-residency years: Looking bloated, gaudy and at times bordering on self-parody. Those missteps, courtesy of director Baz Luhrmann and an ill-used Tom Hanks, squander Austin Butler’s brilliant moments in the title role, which deserve a much better movie.
  8. Everything worth seeing in Pokemon Detective Pikachu neatly fits in the coming-attractions trailer, leaving a pretty numbing additional 100 minutes of sound and furry. Those deeply invested in the franchise will likely find bits to like, but in terms of fashioning a memorable live-action version, alas, that's not in the cards.
  9. The sense of violation that this story entails is almost palpable, and "Our Father" certainly conveys that. If only the filmmakers had trusted the audience enough to present it in a more unadorned manner.
  10. Wonder Park feels like the kind of mild attraction that younger kids might enjoy when it hits secondary platforms. It's just not an adventure that's worth the price of a ticket or standing in line to see.
  11. There are no icebergs here, but that doesn't prevent the movie from sinking under its own weight.
  12. A wholly forgettable movie, most likely to be remembered, lamentably, for its contributing role in Neeson landing in hot water.
  13. Director James Wan again fills the screen with spectacle, some of it unevenly rendered, though even eye-popping digital effects couldn’t compensate for the frequent flatness of the dialogue and situations.
  14. “Rebel Moon” might look big and splashy, even on a TV screen, but in terms of working as drama, it’s less a rebel yell than a low-key rebel grunt.
  15. For anyone wondering why "The Princess" is premiering on Hulu in the US, not sister service Disney+, the movie answers that in the first five minutes, when the title character brutally dispatches a pair of guards sent into the tower where she's being held. While the timing seems right for a princess who rescues herself, there's precious little substance to this violent fantasy, featuring Joey King figuratively letting down her hair.
  16. Simply put, Neeson has been in a bit of a rut, one that Ice Road exemplifies almost literally, since at several points in the movie the challenge involves extricating big trucks from slushy situations.
  17. The Secret: Dare to Dream at best feels like a tepid distraction even for those receptive to its blueprint, far from the stuff that dreams are made of.
  18. Writer-director Sam Levinson spends a good deal of time in Malcolm & Marie complaining about critics, which feels like a boxer leading with his chin. Pairing Zendaya and John David Washington, the movie -- quickly and stealthily shot during the pandemic -- wins points for ingenuity, then loses them with its shrill tone and the uneven hairpin turns of its writing.
  19. Old
    M. Night Shyamalan is up to his old tricks in "Old," but after his heralded breakthrough with "Split," he's back on a downward trajectory. While the premise again has an eerie "Twilight Zone"-type quality, the long journey to a payoff -- littered with pretty awful dialogue -- might be picturesque, but it's no walk on the beach.
  20. As much as the movie appears to yearn to jump-start the franchise, it seems to have forgotten to bother with a coherent script, leaving one to wonder how a film with this much action somehow manages to be so boring.
  21. A warmed-over collection of cinematic cliches that misses its shot what could have been a fertile premise, in don't-quit-your-day-job fashion.
  22. The film goes from Shark Week to shark weak – from playfully amusing to just plain stupid, eliciting enough laughs in the wrong places to make an advance screening virtually interactive.
  23. Choose Love strains the storytelling to fit the gimmick, in a special that does its central character no favors by making her race through the trio of suitors suddenly in her life.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    I laughed out loud a few times during The Big Lebowski, and Jeff Bridges, as always, is very good, but after I write this review, I'll probably never think about the movie again. And I spend way too much time thinking about movies.
  24. The problem is that those pulling Child's Play's strings don't consistently commit to anything other than the gore.
  25. Hellraiser is obviously operating within fairly well-defined parameters, and leveraging 35 years of screen history, delivers on the most basic level in terms of special effects and gore, without – the “reimagining” claim notwithstanding – bringing much freshness to the formula.
  26. Far from a passion project, this Netflix film distinctly feels – as one of its writers says in the production notes – like a punchline in search of a movie, built on a soggy parade of sugary cameos that doesn’t provide much snap, crackle and pop.
  27. Yet for all its high-octane action this tenth film is really just revving its engine for more sequels to come, kicking off a multi-part story that offers an appropriately bloated way to bring this very loud enterprise to a (no doubt temporary) finish.
  28. Even grading on a curve, though, Murder Mystery is a tired, bordering on tiresome endeavor -- feeling like the pilot for a not-very-good TV show -- as well as a reminder that Netflix's content buffet caters to all kinds of tastes.
  29. The best thing that "Sonic" has going for it, by leaps and bounds, is the infusion of manic energy that it receives from an unleashed Jim Carrey as the villain, Dr. Robotnik, basically a mad scientist out to capture or kill the little alien. Everything else, though, is a rather tedious slog.

Top Trailers