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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  1. Lansdown
    The clash between a winning cast, a witty script and Lansdown's technical weaknesses produces a pleasant, if not memorable, film blanc.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Previous Engagement
    Stevenson manages to deliver a few poignant moments of nostalgia for the pleasures of youth against the stunning backdrop of the Maltese coastline.
  3. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
    Set against a production design seemingly inspired by the American flag, director Kenny Ortega's choreography is industrial and efficient, if haplessly stranded somewhere between Michael Jackson and the Village People.
  4. The Kid
    There isn't a moment in the film that isn't overhyped.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Da Vinci Code
    Action and ideas -- they get in each other's way, pal. And director Ron Howard didn't want to choose between 'em. Good impulse, not such a good result.
  6. The Lake House
    By herself, Bullock isn't enough to hold up this enervating movie, which lumbers along ponderously until, at the end, it takes a giant leap into the suspension of disbelief that lost me altogether.
  7. Crazy Love
    In the sense that everyone is interesting once their lives are sufficiently unpacked, Burt and Linda's story is not boring -- but beyond its tabloid sensationalism, it's not especially significant either.
  8. Without the King
    A curious mixture of banality and revelation.
  9. To End All Wars
    The dialogue and voice-over narration (by Gordon) are homily-heavy, and the staging sometimes awkward. The prison extras in particular are often left to stare blankly at the gut-wrenching action before them, with many, including Sutherland, looking awfully fit for men who've been starving for years.
  10. About a Boy
    There's not much more to this adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel than charm -- effortless, pleasurable, featherweight charm.
  11. The Anniversary Party
    It's no great surprise that the best part of The Anniversary Party is the acting, even if Leigh and Cumming don't always direct themselves as well as they do some of their co-stars.
  12. Gods and Generals
    By highlighting the human costs of slavery to everyone BUT the enslaved -- here, relations between African-American domestics and their owners are cordial, even respectful, on both sides -- Maxwell risks being pilloried as an apologist for that institution.
  13. Shooting Fish
    Shooting Fish wants to hang with the hip crowd--witness the vibrant colors, the flashy camera work and the stream of catchy pop songs--but its heart just isn't wild enough.
  14. Man of the House
    Stuck with flat material and a star more adept at responding to humor than generating it, director Stephen Herek, in a vain attempt to generate laughs, enlists Cedric the Entertainer, as a convict-turned-preacher.
  15. Eros
    A maddeningly uneven triptych.
  16. Heartbreak Hospital
    Gerber has a sharp cast at hand -- All work furiously, yet the director, with his fake backdrops and stately pacing, never settles on a consistent tone. Surely the novel had more bite.
  17. On a Clear Day
    On a Clear Day is in most respects "The Full Monty," only with swimming, not stripping, and no bursts into song or dance - only the usual canny sequencing of tears and laughter, interspersed here with fetching underwater photography and father-son issues up the wazoo.
  18. I Want Your Money
    In Griggs's eyes, they're all fools. Only old Ronnie, dearly departed though he may be, is worthy of reverence.
  19. Together
    Its schmaltzy manipulations are pure 1940s Hollywood. Still, if you can get past the corn, the story exerts a not-unsatisfying emotional pull thanks to Yun's soulful gravity and a tenderness that Chen hasn't shown quite so openly since his 1984 debut, "Yellow Earth."
  20. Blow
    If as much thought had been expended on character and consequences as was lavished on bell-bottom diameters, collar widths and soundtrack selection, Blow might have been a richer, more intelligent experience, and much more Demme's movie than a carbon copy of other people's.
  21. Requiem for a Dream
    Far too complex and provoking.
  22. Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion
    The film is exhaustive -- and ultimately exhausting.
  23. The Legend of Drunken Master
    A half-baked classic.
  24. Soap Girl
    Silly and pretentious would-be romance.
  25. Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme
    In Fitzgerald's hands, freestyling is an all-good means of personal expression and communal identification. The dark side of rap he treats only superficially, shortchanging a well-rounded discussion in favor of wholehearted celebration.
  26. The Fountain
    Part dewey-eyed paperback romance, part acid-trip planetarium show, this extravagantly silly movie comes on like the second coming of "2001."
  27. xXx
    The film gives good action (amid more tired spy business) but comes riddled with contradictions.
  28. The Stepfather
    The kickoff is good -- the finale effectively literalizes the expression “broken home” -- but director Nelson McCormick doesn’t keep things “taut” in between. Rather than do scenes right the first time, he tends to déjà vu them (this usually involves Amber Heard, wearing not-too-much).
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Arthur
    This remake seems to exist only to zap the original of its minor pleasures.
  30. Ice Princess
    Joan Cusack and Kim Cattrall bring some nice ambiguity to their thankless roles as the mothers, while pintsize Kirsten Olson and punked-out Julianna Cannarozzo, both professional skaters, leaven this Disney sugarplum with much-needed wit.
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