L.A. Weekly's Scores

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For 3,750 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 8.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 56
Highest review score: 100 A Bread Factory Part Two: Walk With Me a While
Lowest review score: 0 Deuces Wild
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,540 out of 3750
  2. Mixed: 1,542 out of 3750
  3. Negative: 668 out of 3750
3750 movie reviews
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    • 39 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alvin and the Chipmunks
    Lee, acting through gritted teeth, barely musters the energy to yell “Alvin!,” but the chipmunks themselves -- voiced by Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney -- are surprisingly appealing, though their newly R&B-tinged rendition of “Witch Doctor” is god-awful.
  2. Mulan
    Mulan, like all the characters in this movie, is a cookie-cutter American prototype, lazily ripped off from the Disney boilerplate that fashioned Pocahontas et al.
  3. The Dogwalker
    A well-made but emotionally scattered film whose hero gives his heart only to the dog.
  4. Cradle 2 the Grave
    Relentless, infantile and impossible to dislike.
  5. Titus
    Taymor has done an inspired job of resurrecting one of Shakespeare's unruliest works, just in time for the new century.
    • 16 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Know Who Killed Me
    In short, it’s a gift-wrapped part for Lohan, who plays her good-girl/bad-girl role with wit and an air of sly calculation.
  7. Wild Wild West
    The film's gadgetry is pricier, but the leering is strictly the Playboy joke page circa 1967.
  8. Talk to Me
    The movie always teeters on the verge of something deeper, and Cheadle’s rendering of Greene’s stubborn refusal to be domesticated is funny, exhilarating and then quietly tragic. But Lemmons keeps pulling back into jive-talking shtick, and for much of the time -- I felt as though someone had trapped me in a time-warped episode of "The Jeffersons."
  9. The Green Mile
    A fascinating tragedy, easy to underrate.
  10. The Tavern
    Although on the surface this is a modest comedy about the Catch-22 frustrations of the restaurant game (arcane insurance laws, backstabbing chefs), it is also a movie of some psychological depth, thanks to the understated precision of Dye's deep-welled performance.
  11. Black Hawk Down
    In the end, neither the appealing cast -- nor the force of Scott's stunning imagery is enough to make us understand why these men died.
  12. Vice
    Inglis offers complicated characters and uniformly worthy performances without falsely manipulating us into sympathizing with anybody but tries too strenuously to fuse his warring polarities of character-driven intrigue and plot-driven treacheries into an allegory of redemption. In the end, that feels like one or two big things too many.
  13. Billabong Odyssey
    Made up largely of vivid aerial shots of those folks doing the things they do, the film is a less philosophical, introspective look at contemporary surfing than Dana Brown's recent "Step Into Liquid," and is pitched at a smaller, niche audience.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life & Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal
    The causal combination of pop culture and Holocaust imagery is an arresting start to a film about contemporary European anti-Semitism, but the doc quickly turns to well-worn themes.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
    I warn you, I'm gonna continue whining about the movie. Just keep in mind that I liked it.
  16. Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius
    Sadly for dramatic purposes, Jones' achievements seemed effortless, and the movie could really use the odd Ty Cobb wig-out.
  17. Shadow Magic
    Shadow Magic is rich with detail.
  18. Agnes Browne
    Anjelica Huston, a gifted and sometimes extraordinary actress, has given herself the title role in her second outing as director---a bitof miscasting for which the director, and not the actress, must be blamed
  19. Anger Management
    Although Sandler's formula remains constant -- the downtrodden hero can do eet! -- what's new is his willingness to share the screen equally with a male co-star. Not that anyone could get in the way of that mugging steamroller Nicholson.
  20. Snatch.
    It all feels rather laddish and belabored, but it will eat up 90 minutes of your time without making you regret the loss.
  21. A Dirty Shame
    I love what his films stand for -- inclusivity, tolerance, liberation and fun -- but I’ve always felt about his movies as I do about Monty Python: Half an hour is a riot; an hour and half starts to be a chore.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
    All of the riffs are twice and thrice removed, but the effect is lively rather than tiresome, largely on the strength of game performances, Sean Lennon's atmospheric score and writer/director Jordan Galland's clear affection for his sources.
  23. Funny Money
    Never-hilarious but often-quite-amusing film.
  24. Star Trek
    The visual effects are predictably excellent -- sometimes, in the case of a three-man free fall through space, unexpectedly lyrical -- but most of the movie's dramatic conflicts feel strictly pro forma.
  25. Traveller
    It's fine acting of - and chemistry - between Paxton, Margulies and Mark Wahlberg that gives this film (written by Jim McGlynn, directed by Jack Green) its kick.
    • L.A. Weekly
  26. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
    As before, there are moments, when Schneider is turned loose to do his anything-goes, creepy-funny shtick, that are crudely inspired.
  27. Save the Last Dance
    It's pretty good, really.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    What Happens in Vegas
    The stars, despite having only a fraction of the charm and talent of classic sparring-but-meant-for-each-other duos, know how to mug for the camera and well up on cue, and somehow that turns out to be enough to carry this trifle.
  29. The Duchess of Langeais
    If anything, as it lathers up into an abortive attempt at scarlet-woman branding and a goofy siege on the nunnery where a dazed and confused Antoinette has holed up, The Duchess of Langeais works best as the comic bondage fantasy implied in its deliciously sly French title: "Don't Touch the Axe."
    • 45 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Close Your Eyes
    As Willing moves the movie along its well-worn, Ruth Rendell–ish path, it accrues a certain fusty British charm, along with the requisite (and, for this reviewer, most satisfying) amounts of satanic symbolism, creepy mute children and abandoned gothic churches.
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