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. Heartthrob
    Apart from an extended scene-setting flashback that takes the form of a lavish Farah Khan song-and-dance montage, most of the running time is devoted to wearying flop-sweat farce.
  2. The Far Side of Jericho
    The movie gives every cheerful appearance of having been shot with no time and less money, and it doesn't have much on its mind, unless you count the moral integrity supplied by local Apaches more by way of Mel Brooks than Howard Hawks.
  3. While She Was Out
    The film, executive-produced by Guillermo del Toro, hinges on a first-rate performance by Basinger, who imbues Della with a fire that makes the film's basic thesis -- both the domestic sphere and the larger world are dangerous places for women -- seem something more than boilerplate.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Igor
    So bad it's scary.
  5. Derailed
    Directed by Swedish filmmaker Mikael Håfström, who's clearly new at the genre, this aptly named movie is riddled with obvious parallels, crude moral talking points, a script so awful it's practically avant-garde, and a vain attempt at comic relief by RZA.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Piñero
    The main drawback is Claudio Chea's vertiginous camera work -- and the print's continual alternations between black-and-white and color add nothing but a distracting ornamentation.
  7. Appleseed
    The film's snazzy new automated animation style falls short: The supposedly human face of our metal-plated robocop's partner -- the inevitable curvy female in a leather jump suit -- is an inexpressive, glossy doll mask, untouched by human hands.
  8. Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat
    It's Lawrence who throws Runteldat (as in "run and tell that") off key, repeating an admonition about "the trials and tribulations of life" that sounds suspiciously insincere coming, as it does, from a guy smothered in diamonds.
  9. Max Keeble's Big Move
    Its overall view of 12-year-old life is essentially one of high-spirited fun.
  10. Wisconsin Death Trip
    What could have been a fascinating exploration of geographical mayhem becomes instead an exercise in tedium.
  11. Amy
    If Tass had found a way to include more playfulness, her film would be more endearing. Instead, she accents the easy bathos of David Parker's script, from the problems of the shrill, cliched neighbors to a finale that plays like a movie of the week.
  12. The Phantom of the Opera
    Watching the passionless Phantom, with its geriatric story-framing device, gooey dimestore romanticism and tawdry pop ballads about unrequited yearning, feels akin to dying and waking up in your parents’ easy-listening-radio hell.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dance Flick
    The gags themselves only marginally work when they stick to silly non sequitur; the random movie references are forced and flat, and the takeoffs of "Dreamgirls" and "Fame" songs would make "Weird Al" groan.
  14. Monkeybone
    Like so many movies that depend on effects for effect, plot comes in a poor second to spectacle. That leaves the Fraser, funny and sexy as hell, left with little chance to prove it.
  15. Message in a Bottle
    Even the easily weepy may grow impatient with the snail’s pace of this melancholy romance.
  16. Wicker Park
    In the end it doesn't lead to much beyond weepy melodrama. Still, McGuigan draws committed performances from a talented cast.
  17. Fantastic Four
    Directing seems an unduly elegant term for what Hollywood hack du jour Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi) does here -- the action scenes are so choppily constructed that their excitement disappears faster than the Invisible Woman.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Alexander
    What Stone has delivered instead is no folie de grandeur, but rather the last thing one would have expected from him: an honorable failure.
  19. How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
    A movie with a lot on its plate, but nothing interesting on its mind.
  20. Bulletproof Monk
    It’s a testament to Chow's star power that, even with an accent more than casually reminiscent of Elmer Fudd's, he comes off charming, handsome and cool in a movie as ridiculous as Bulletproof Monk.
  21. Clockstoppers
    Intermittently fun, but mostly just efficiently passable.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Scary Movie 4
    The sort of movie you like in spite of yourself, Scary Movie 4 is obvious and dumb, but it possesses such a giddy, good-hearted spirit that even its terrible jokes (and there are tons) get by on something resembling charm.
  23. National Treasure
    Can't match an ounce of the suspense generated by contestants frantically buying airline tickets on Bruckheimer's own TV money quest, "The Amazing Race." This movie is a fortune wasted.
  24. It's a Wonderful Afterlife
    Every gag is smothered by the prevailing tone of labored zaniness and generic, plucky "mischief music" alerting discerning viewers to abandon all hope of laughter.
  25. Margaret Cho: Assassin
    Painfully bereft of wit or cogent insight.
  26. The Sisters
    The Sisters may be worth a look, however, for the work of the magnificent Bello and Tony Goldwyn, who's never been better than as the married man with whom Marcia has an affair. Their final clench is pure, guilty-pleasure melodrama, which means it's not the least bit Chekhovian.
  27. Beautiful Creatures
    Could it get any worse?
  28. Pay It Forward
    (Leder's) camera won't sit still long enough to complete a scene and tell a coherent story, skittering all over the map until you're dizzy from all the degrees of separation and spurious connection.
  29. Happy Hour
    LaPaglia is a fine actor, but not even he can redeem such bathos.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Saw II
    Saw II repels, morally and aesthetically, and while some -- including the filmmakers, perhaps -- may take this as a compliment, it isn't intended as one. Let the game stop. Please.
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