Dallas Observer's Scores

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For 1,518 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 59
Highest review score: 100 Final Destination 3
Lowest review score: 0 How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 678 out of 1518
  2. Mixed: 604 out of 1518
  3. Negative: 236 out of 1518
1518 movie reviews
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  1. Casanova
    It's a sweet, silly and not unintelligent romantic comedy: For a period farce, you could do worse.
  2. Robots
    Robots doesn't rely on being current, which will ultimately render it as timeless as any great fable. At its center is a big, beating heart.
  3. The Devil and Daniel Johnston
    In many ways, The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a beautiful work, a painstakingly crafted portrait of a talented self-saboteur--a man consistently done in by a vicious mental illness. But it's not as compelling as one would hope.
  4. Elf
    Elf may be no more than a pleasant, amusing trifle, a grin that fades well before Thanksgiving, but it also will endure in the way all decent Hollywood-made Christmas fairy tales last if they're rendered with good cheer and good will.
  5. Downfall
    This is a grim and sometimes guilt-ridden examination of the Third Reich in collapse. But it's also weirdly sympathetic, and not just to the peripheral figures in Hitler's twisted world.
  6. It's All Gone Pete Tong
    This is phony, absolutely, but the good feeling it leaves behind is plenty real.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Dinner Game
    A perfectly entertaining little French comedy that doesn't quite lodge in your brain in the way you hope it would.
  8. The Da Vinci Code
    All in all, a respectable and predictable adaptation.
  9. Matchstick Men
    That's where the movie falters: It tries to give Garcia's book a heart and conscience it didn't need and never demanded.
  10. Teacher's Pet
    The musical numbers are energetic and fun.
  11. The Inheritance
    Indeed, in this era of muckraking left-wing documentaries, The Inheritance offers a more fascinating fictionalized look at what cut-throat capitalism can do to conscience.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Km. 0 - Kilometer Zero
    That's what separates good films from bad. And that's what makes Km. 0 stand out.
  13. Intimate Strangers
    Props to translator Nigel Palmer for keeping the subtitles witty instead of blindly literal.
  14. Evelyn
    James Bond wants us to believe he's an Everyman. The lovely thing is, it works.
  15. The Big Hit
    Manages the seemingly impossible task of being very funny indeed and being as dark as anything Wong has ever made. This is an almost painfully bleak comedy that makes you squirm in the manner of “The Out-of-Towners.”
  16. Johnny English
    The movie is more a loose collection of skits than a coherent whole. But then, it's never coherence we're looking for when Atkinson's exhausting imagination is cut loose from its fetters. The weird bonus here is John Malkovich's over-the-top performance.
  17. Stardom
    In his observant, swiftly paced Stardom, Arcand does it all with relentless wit, high style, and a suggestion of tragedy.
  18. Romeo Must Die
    May not have the best script in the world, but it brings Jet Li to the big screen in a way that all action junkies, not just the video-store geeks, will appreciate.
  19. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
    An affecting piece of work.
  20. The Dancer Upstairs
    The Dancer Upstairs would have made a suitable double feature with "The Quiet American"; both films unfold slowly, build toward an anxious climax and end with a shrug of grief.
  21. Did You Hear About the Morgans?
    It's a thoroughly delightful throwaway--the kind of movie for which cable television was made, from the maker of "Music & Lyrics" (Marc Lawrence), who knows his way 'round a snappy tune.
  22. The Weather Man
    The Weather Man is not the wacky movie Paramount is selling, nor is it cynical Oscar bait. It's just a little movie about little people trying not to get wet or freeze to death or get burned when they walk outside, and good luck with all that.
  23. The Barbarian Invasions
    Arcand loyalists are bound to miss Rémy, but at least he goes out in style. Even the antagonists will have to admit that.
  24. Baadasssss!
    As frantic and frenzied as its source material.
  25. The Boxer
    It can't compare to what might have been: a full-scale performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as an Irish raging bull--a rebel with a cause. There are still traces of greatness in what he attempts, and it's more than enough to make the movie worth a lingering look.
  26. Superstar
    In Mary Katherine Gallagher's dogged perseverance, it's easy to find not only cheap laughs but real soul. In her way, she's a saint.
  27. Gerry
    There's elegance and grace here, fostering an opportunity to reflect upon why men get so dutiful about being down. It's worth the hike.
  28. My Architect
    Nathaniel will sometimes take it too far. It's particularly distracting, and even a little distancing, when he waits till the end of a lengthy interview to tell one of his father's former collaborators and friends that he is Louis' son.
  29. The Replacement Killers
    Fuqua has done an admirable job staging the action scenes, but the script is little more than a thin framework to justify those scenes.
  30. Kingdom of Heaven
    So, if you want to see this loud but rather ordinary epic, don't expect its tricked-up cultural and theological messages to carry much water. For entertainment value, it's hard to beat the climactic siege of Jerusalem, a Ridley Scott-perfect half-hour that matches anything in "Troy" or "Gladiator" for sheer, bloody, helmet-bashing mayhem.
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